


binder #???

by godlet



Series: binder#??? universe [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Body Horror, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Dramedy, Eating Disorders, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Genderfluid Character, Horror, LGBTQ Themes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Trans Character, all ghosts are non-binary, ecto-gore galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 03:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 138,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5853112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godlet/pseuds/godlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny inadvertently begins to catalogue just how many binders he loses to the increasingly supernatural shenanigans in his life.</p><p>(Essentially a giant first season re-write of the show but with LGBTQIA+ themes, more ghosts/ghost lore and halfa examination, and the proper mental illnesses accompanying dying in a portal.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. down a hill, trying

**Author's Note:**

> **I've decided to discontinue trying to complete/rewrite this because I wrote it when I was sort of young and in a really bad dysphoric state and continuing to write it would put me back into that bad state which I'm not really willing to do. Sorry everybody.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Nothing will be deleted, though, so you can read all 130k+ and whatever side stories I add to the series whenever you want, since I'm not discontinuing 'do ghosts tan?', just the main story itself.**
> 
>  
> 
> **IF enough people seriously want like, an outline of how the rest of the story was supposed to go, I can post it as ch22, but if most of you are like 'yea I'm fine with how this 'ended' and I don't need an ending', then this is it, folks.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Despite the tags, this story isn't as angsty/sad/horror-filled as you might expect it to be. Happy ending and moral fixations guaranteed in the end, along with situational humor and stupid puns in every chapter. Heed chapter-by-chapter warnings.

 

The first binder Danny Fenton concocts is nothing more than a fantasy turned into harsh reality.

 

His parents still lock up all of the ace bandaging – and any other medical supplies – in a cabinet or drawer somewhere, expecting their thirteen and seventeen year old children to come to them for any problems needing band aids and antiseptic. So Danny made do with what he had that was similar enough to ace bandaging.

 

Danny spends his early mornings before middle school tearing off long lines of clear packaging tape, then carefully winding it all around his chest so as to not get it stuck to the wrong spot of skin. The tape doesn't breathe, nor give, and is generally used in both bad taste and desperation.

 

The loud _shrrrk_ -ing noises that come from his room everyday around the same time make no difference to his ghost studying parents who are constantly two entire floors down and away in a lab, but his nosy sister's room is right across the hallway from his.

 

Danny bets she is bound to come sniffing around any day now. He can just feel it.

 

A few steps and two doors away, Danny's prediction comes true in the form of a plotting Jasmine Fenton. She hears the odd noises coming from her little sister's- _brother's_ room every morning, varying in start and end time from 6 a.m to 7 a.m. One thing she notes is that Danielle- _Danny_ does not leave the house without making those noises first. She can assume this is correct because on the days that there are no noises, Danny does not leave her- _his_ room no matter how many times Jazz cajoles him from behind a suspiciously barred door.

 

Jazz closes the green notebook labelled 'Danny' with permanent marker on masking tape and heads to bed. Tomorrow, she decides, will be the day she opens Danny's door before the 6 a.m mark to catch him red-handed doing... whatever the heck he was doing this past month.

 

The next morning, Jazz hovers outside of the unsuspecting Danny's bedroom door, waiting, listening...

 

Danny begins his morning routine of picking at the end of the clear shipping tape, trying to get a grip with his frequently bitten nails. He mistakes the odd creaking outside his door as the house settling, and manages to pull an arm-length of tape just as his sister bursts through his door with a loud 'ah- _hah!_ '

 

Danny whirls around, dropping the tape in favor of covering his bare chest, "Jazz! What the heck are you doing?!"

 

Jazz nearly falls flat on her face in her haste to leave her half-naked brother, "Sorry! _Sorry!_ Oh, gosh-" her head knocks against the door frame as she clumsily escapes, and her hair gets caught in the space between the shut door.

 

Danny breathes in once, twice, before dropping his arm and looking down at the fuzzy, dirty tape he was forced to drop in surprise.

 

Jazz obviously wanted something. But what reason did she have to come busting down his door like some kind of police officer coming to arrest a felon?

 

He shrugs, ripping off the dirty end of the tape and starting to pick anew.

 

No use stopping now.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny hops down the stairs none too carefully, hoping to avoid his sister for the morning. He had thought about the situation that morning in his head, and decided that he was better off not knowing what was going on in his neurotic older sister's mind. That was _usually_ the case around her; the less Danny knew, the better he would feel about his life.

 

Actually, now that Danny had thought about it, ignoring her tended to mean he was blindsided by all the unexpected plans she creates when he isn't looking...

 

 _...Eh._ Ignoring his problems and being generally unhealthy as usual.

 

Today, for leaving early, he would be using the excuse of 'I need to meet Tucker and copy some of his homework.' Which was, unfortunately, true in a sense. He had spent the night before trimming his hair in an effort to make it more... _boy_ -ish. He doesn't know if it worked very well, but it is better than having a salon haircut picked out from a _women's_ hair magazine by his _mother_.

 

He feels like it's a big moment; cutting one's hair. Even if it didn't turn out so great.

 

"Danielle! Er, I mean – _Daniel Rafael_ _Fenton,_ how many times have I told you to be careful going down those stairs, young _man!"_

 

Danny skids to a halt on the second to last step, overbalances, and lands halfway on his butt on the floor and halfway on the last stair with a pained breath.

 

He uses the stair rail to stand up again and looks sheepishly at his mother in the kitchen. She is toying with something green, glowing, and moving on the counter.

 

It is an incredibly normal sight.

 

"Heh, sorry mom." He rubs his neck (hair cut so close to the skin it prickles his palm) and hopes his mom doesn't have a cow over his 'new haircut.' All that motion makes the tape clinging so very harshly to his chest sting a little, and feel tighter. He has the sudden urge to cough and clear something unknown blocking his chest cavity.

 

She nods in approval at his apology, stern face melting away to something more joyful. She then waves the green thing around, "Want some breakfast, honey? It's been swallowed by this here ecto-sample, but I'm sure your flapjacks'll be just _fine_ when I get them out!" She punctuates the claim by suddenly slamming the breakfast-stealing ecto-sample on the counter, rocking the coffee maker from its place and causing a few (plastic) plates to clatter from their shelves.

 

Despite being sort of hungry, Danny's throat closes in disgust at the sight. "Mmm, sounds good, mom. But you know what, Tucker said he'd have some uh... Bagels. Yeah, bagels, today, and that he'd share them with me. So..." He drags the 'so' out, rocking back on his heels.

 

She turns around and gives him a quick gooey green kiss on the forehead, "Alright, you go have fun."

 

Danny trips in his haste to get out the door; he can hear his sister coming down the stairs.

 

He closes the front door and flings his arms out, crouching and acting like he just ran a home-run.

 

_Safe!_

 

The young boy ruffles his own hair and jogs down the sidewalk, ready to schmooze more than just History homework off of his only friend this morning.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

It is lunch time at Amity Park Middle School, and Danny feels like ripping his traitorous skin off.

 

The tape plucks at his chest, causing the dry skin on his back to ripple and itch like... like...

 

Something so very, very itchy.

 

 _It didn't itch like this yesterday_ , Danny thinks with a mental fist shake, _I must've done something different between then and now._

 

Tucker looks over at his wiggling friend from his all-meat-and-sometimes-bread lunch, quirking an eyebrow. "Something get into your pants, dude?"

 

Danny sends him a dirty look. "No. The tape feels funny." He tries pulling his green long-sleeve tee into a different position. It doesn't help him any.

 

His best friend makes an unhelpful sound of acknowledgement, already turning back to bite into his second meat-and-cheese sandwich of the day.

 

"Do you have any more, by the way?"

 

Tucker is suddenly defensive, drawing his lunch close to his chest and bodily leaning away, "No way – you took my food this morning, you are _not_ getting my lunch, too!"

 

"Wh-" Danny feels like hitting Tucker with something, "I didn't mean your lunch, doofus, I meant the tape! This stuff runs out pretty fast."

 

Tucker makes an 'oh' sound and drops his sandwich to dig around in his neon blue backpack. Danny secretly swipes his lunch and hides it. Tucker emerges with a roll of tape sitting proudly in his hand. "You're in luck, friend of mine, as I have the booty right here with me today!"

 

Tucker drops the tape roll with a well placed elbow to the gut, letting out an indignant 'ow!' at the treatment.

 

"Ugh. See if I ever do anything for _you_ again," Tucker sniffs in mock disgust, holding an invisible sandwich in his hands and biting down into thin air. His eyes pop open a second later in panic. "Oh, man - I told you that something's out to get me! Look, it even stole my-"

 

Danny dangles the half-eaten sandwich from his hand, a teasing smirk on his face. "Really now?" He slowly pulls the food to his mouth, as if about to take a bite.

 

" _No!_ "

 

He halts the progress, "No? Then what will you give in return for this poor, defenseless lunch food's life?"

 

Tucker clasps his hands together, begging. "Anything! I'll do anything you want! You still need to do that Book report, right? I can do that, just _please don't eat my sandwich!_ "

 

Danny chuckles and hands the stolen food back over, narrowly avoiding having his hand taken off by Tucker's extremely fast hand swipe, "Deal."

 

They spend a few minutes observing their other classmates also lounging about the school's outdoor eating area, enjoying the mostly cloudy day.

 

"So, have your folks gotten around to calling you Danny full-time yet?" Tucker asks almost conversationally, but they both know that it is a loaded question. Unheard is the 'how are you holding up?'

 

Fortunately, Danny grins, a sure sign that nothing was too terribly wrong, "Yup! Mom slips up every now and then, and Jazz keeps trying to trap me in different rooms of the house to drill me on my mental state with an online psycho-something-or-other, but I think it'll stick soon enough." He then pulled a face, "My dad is the worst, though. He keeps coming up with all of these weird, new nicknames to call me," he shakes his head, "Who the heck calls their kid 'Danny-boy'? Or 'little buddy'? I feel like a dog!"

 

A glare is sent in the snickering Tucker's direction. "Hey, don't look at me like that, I didn't say anything!" He got a sly look on his face. "Though, you know... The next time I come over, I'm so totally gonna egg your dad on with the nickname thing. How you you like to be called 'astro-Danny' for an entire summer break?"

 

 _Oh no_ , Danny envisions, _embarrassing names at home_ and _in public!_ He simply wouldn't survive the horrors of being called 'spaceman' in front of all of his already leery classmates if his parents happened to drive him to or from school some day.

 

Danny moves an icy gaze towards Tucker. The war has begun.

 

The first casualty is the meat sandwich, followed by a thermos full of soup. Danny's own thermos is never touched because his parents made it and who knows what it could do. Probably electrocute someone. Or pull them into an alternate universe where ghosts actually exist.

 

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, and the two teenagers halt their mock battle in favor of cleaning up the meat debris and hurrying to their lockers for the next class, yelping and hooting the whole way.

 

Danny finds himself very grateful for his friend's amazing abilities to distract him from the uncomfortable presence of the tape binding his obtrusive breasts flat.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Tips for safe binding!**
> 
> *Only bind with an actual binder (can be bought [HERE](https://www.gc2b.co/)), a compression shirt (can be bought in a sports apparel store), a sports bra, or a form-fitting undershirt.
> 
> *Only wear your binder for up to 8 hours! Any longer, and you can permanently damage your ribs, spine, skin, lungs, and general health.
> 
> *To stretch while wearing a binder, raise your arms above your head and cough deeply from your chest and then stomach. Twist side to side. Breathe in deeply. If there is any unusual pain, take off your binder immediately.
> 
> *In warmer months, sweat can damage your binder. Make sure you hand wash it in cold water and hang dry to prevent stretching.
> 
> *To reduce sweat, try putting on baby powder under your binder.
> 
> *Most important tip: Give your body a break! Wear your binder as little as possible - if you have clothes that naturally covers your chest without the use of a binder, like puffy vests/jackets or fluffy sweaters, use them! When alone, take your binder off if you're able. When with trusted people, take it off as well. You will always be who you want to be with your friends!


	2. peas (squeeze)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *casual transphobia

 

The second binder Danny manages to obtain is what he was attempting to imitate before, with the packaging tape. It's nearly into his third and final year in middle school when he finally (finally!) gets his hands on some broad ace bandaging.

 

It had been a complete coincidence finding the spare first-aid kit in a broken drawer, but since it isn't a part of his parents' lab kit from downstairs, he figures that no one will come looking for it anytime soon.

 

He spends quite a lot of time that summer practicing how to properly wrap the bandages around his chest without feeling like a boa constrictor made it into his bed while he slept. It doesn't always work - sometimes he just gives up halfway through and spends the day in his room with a really big sweater on and the fan turned on max to chase away the heat, texting Tucker or finding the energy to get on his computer to play a few games.

 

The morning of his first day of eighth grade ("My little man!" His dad crows from across the house the night before. Danny gives him a shaky thumbs up and secretly sets himself on fire in mortification in his head) starts with Danny accidentally dropping the bandages twice, leaving a trembling line going from his bed to the door.

 

He huffs in annoyance and makes no move to get up to retrieve the wayward roll. Jazz opens his door suddenly, unwittingly admitting the roll its bid to freedom.

 

As per usual, she _doesn't freaking knock._

 

"Danny? Can I talk to y- Oh," she looks down, her foot touching the unraveled roll as it continues on past her and out the door, running out of length somewhere in the hallway beyond.

 

Danny sighs, "Hey, Jazz. Do you mind?" He gestures behind her.

 

"Sure, no problem." Jazz retrieves the end of the roll and makes her way back into Danny's room with captured bandage in hand, closing the door behind her.

 

With that motion, Danny's eyes narrow. He should've known she would use his ' _vulnerable_ situation' to finally trap him in one room of the house in order to have an _annoyingly psychological_ conversation.

 

 _Great._ He blows the newly (officially! No more 7 o'clock night before cuts with gooey safety scissors squirreled away from an old elementary school pencil box) cut bangs off of his forehead.

 

"Danny, I know that today is your first day of eighth grade. And don't get me wrong - I'm happy for you, I really am!" She waves her hands as if to ward off Danny's possible incoming sarcasm, "…but I think it's time we had a conversation about… uh, well… _this._ "

 

She pulls the rest of the bandage deftly up into a perfect roll, but has yet to hand it back. That makes Danny tense and wrap his arms even tighter around his chest, waiting for some kind of fallout, but still hopelessly trying to divert it.

 

He _really_ doesn't want to have this conversation. Like, ever.

 

"What conversation, Jazz? Everything's fine, you know…" He trails off, shrugging and staring up at his sister, who was looking off to one side and out the window.

 

"Well, Danny," she begins cautiously, "You're making a lot of big changes at a very fast pace, so I'm just concerned for you and your... ability to make decisions for yourself right now."

 

 _...What the heck did she just say? Did she just imply that I'm_ emotionally compromised _or something?_

 

"Are you sure you want to, you know, keep… _forcing_ your uh… _chest_ down like this? What if they're never the same again?"

 

Danny blanches.

 

"I mean, it's up to you, of course! I just…" she fidgets at his blank stare, "wanted you to know that I support you! But I also wanted you to _think about this_ before you really get into it." She shrugs her shoulders jerkily and tacks on at the end, "I mean, it's not like you're going to _die_ if you don't transition _right this minute._ "

 

...A beat of awkward silence, Jazz staring down at him with hopeful eyes. He thinks, fleetingly, that his sister is the ugliest person in the world right now.

 

If he were a nicer, calmer person, he would choose a different route of reaction than snatching the bandage roll from her hands and bodily shoving her out the door.

 

" _Bwah_ – Danny! I'm not done yet!"

 

Maybe even have a healthy conversation one day.

 

"Yeah, okay, thanks Jazz, nice talking to you. Goodbye I gotta get ready _so get out_!"

 

...Probably not.

 

He can hear Jazz mumble 'rude' from the other side of his locked door.

 

 _Whatever,_ he thinks, and continues to wrap his chest. He can't wait to show Tucker; at least his best friend would appreciate his efforts.

 

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

 

"Tuck! Check me out!"

 

Tucker turns around from his locker to address his excited friend when he gets an unexpected eyeful of Danny's bare stomach. Danny is hiking the front of his black hoodie up to show off his new binding material- _in the middle of a crowded hallway._

 

Tucker chokes and scrambles to pull his over-enthusiastic friend's hoodie down again, "Dude! Keep your clothes on, we're in public!"

 

Danny keeps smiling, shaking his head as if _Tucker_ was the one doing something outrageous and inappropriate, "So? Did you see? I'm practically as flat as a board!" He pats his now clothed chest with a deep (-ish) breath and his head held high.

 

Tucker, on the other hand, was closing his eyes and counting to ten.

 

 _Well,_ Tucker reasons as he drags his giddy buddy to class, _at least he's happy today._

 

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

 

Jazz corners Danny during a hastily made leftover meatloaf surprise dinner by their parents. The two scientists were still in the lab, occasionally making excited shouts as they continued with a new breakthrough in their ghost-"hunting" line of work.

 

Honestly, Danny could care less about whatever wack-job invention they'd come up with this time. He just wishes his mom hadn't made his plate _for_ him, making him eat an entire pile of bland tasting peas.

 

He would gladly eat an entire _bucket_ of ecto-tainted what-have-yous, however, if it results in his sister not bugging the absolute snot out of him.

 

"Jazz, okay, I get it! I am serious about this!" He accidentally flings a pea off of his plate as he turns angrily to the side, "Do you see my face? Do you see how serious I am? Yeah? Good. Now stop pestering me!"

 

Jazz blinks rapidly as a irritated Danny turns back to his plate of meatloaf and stuffs some into his mouth, obviously using it as a reason not to talk.

 

"Danny-"

 

" _What._ "

 

"Nothing, never mind…" she sighs, picking up her plate and moving it to the sink. So much for that idea.

 

She washes her plate in silent contemplation, mentally mapping out the gorgeous plan she had thought up a few weeks before. It was still scribbled out into her 'Danny' notebook upstairs, but she had confidence that she could remember the whole thing right then and there if asked. Of course, Danny won't ask, and she is sure that Danny won't ask, because Danny _never_ asks. And also because she is usually right about everything in this house, including the observed behavioral patterns of her family.

 

 _He'll thank me for this_ , she concludes in her head, _and then we'll be closer. All of us._

 

Danny stubbornly ignores his sister as she treks up to her room, pushing more peas around on his plate and generally accomplishing the visage of a moody teenager.

 

He doesn't really feel like admitting to his sister just how scared and alone he feels in all this. He is absolutely sure that it will only increase the speculative stalking she thinks he doesn't notice, where she stares at him from different parts of the house partially hidden like a really bad spy and noting things down in a green book.

 

Enthusiastically supportive family or nothing, he is still making a big change in his life.

 

After all, being a trans kid is not an easy path to take. Not at all.

 

...

 

Danny absentmindedly places an entire forkful of peas in his mouth and immediately regrets it.

 


	3. congratulations! you bitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *transphobia, public non-consensual outing, tense & uncomfortable situations

 

Using ace bandages instead of tape was a splendid idea, Danny thought. This thought occurred _before_ he actually used the ace bandages. If only it didn't have the awful side-affect of being really freaking annoying to put on. At least the tape had the courtesy to stay in one spot once you stuck it there, meaning it could be wound around one-handed.

 

The crisp January morning finds Danny struggling with this concept in his room, winding and unwinding the same length of bandage every few minutes with a plethora of frustrated noises. Apparently the world decided that he has had too many not-bad days, and needs to be shaken up a bit.

 

The previously used tape sits forlornly on his desk, bits of dust already clinging to its slightly sticky sides.

 

Danny squints at it as if in challenge.

 

… _Whatever._

 

"Danny!" His sister calls from downstairs, "You're going to be late!"

 

A pause.

 

" _Again!_ "

 

"Coming!" He shouts, some of the fabric slipping out of place, "Oh, shoot…" He quickly unravels it a bit and starts over. His older sister's loud impatience _really_ wasn't helping his grip this morning. Or his emotional state. The one he tries not to think about too hard.

 

After several long minutes of fumbling, there is a thumping noise coming up the stairs. It reaches his door, and he drops the roll in surprise (again!?) at the sheer volume of his sister.

 

" _Danny if you don't come out here within the next five minutes I'm getting dad and telling him you're feeling up for some '_ father-son time _' after school today!_ "

 

Danny groans loudly, prompting his sister to move back down the stairs once more. He spends even more time picking up the roll, winding up back up again, and trying to find the best spot to position it on his body where he could both hold it in place with one hand and properly bind it before anything fell.

 

After more unsuccessful minutes of grappling with the bandage, Danny has to stop and grab at his hair violently in destructive frustration.

 

_Why can't I do it right?_

 

"Danny?"

 

Danny jerks around in shock at his open door, finding his mother standing there with half of her body in the hallway.

 

He then notices that his eyes are oddly wet, and hurriedly wipes them with a bare arm.

 

Maddie sees her son's sad state and steps into the room to console him, but hesitates at the unknown naked variable, "What's wrong, sweetie?"

 

Danny sniffs once, then stops, remembering that he wasn't supposed to be crying about something like this in the first place. "Nothin', mom, I just... can't get this _stupid thing_ to work. I'm late and…"

 

He trails off despondently, as he was prone to doing, and looks helplessly at both his backpack and his bedside clock.

 

He feels like he's on the verge of a shut down that he _swears_ hadn't been there two minutes before.

 

Maddie clicks her teeth, cranes her head further into the room, and stops at seeing her son's bare back and the haphazardness of the ace bandages. Quick as she ever was, she snaps her fingers to signal that an idea had popped into her brain.

 

Danny turns around to face her as she says 'wait right there' and walks out of the room, leaving the door open and an uncomfortable breeze on the teenager's shirtless torso.

 

He shivers for a moment, wondering where and what his mother had gone to do before her orange head pops back in, this time walking straight towards him with a signal-minded purpose usually only seen in the lab.

 

_How reassuring._

 

"Here we go! Your father used to wear this in elementary school." She brandishes a fairly large gray sweatshirt with a badger on the front, the letters around it worn down to illegibility. It was obviously a school mascot, but why in the world had his father kept it for so long?

 

Danny blinks once, incredulous, before accepting the garment. It is incredibly baggy just existing without a body inside of it, so he doesn't have to guess that it will absolutely swamp his skinny frame.

 

"Um, mom, I don't think this will help me…"

 

"Nonsense, Danny! Just some days, you have to be slouchy. Don't be afraid to put your hair in a bun and wear your sweatpants, just because you aren't having the best of days," she circles around his tense body and picks up an older spaghetti strap undershirt he had apparently threw on the floor some time ago, "Just put this on underneath and no one will notice anything."

 

He looks at the giant _thing_ that is his father's early childhood (yikes!) sweatshirt.

 

She has a point.

 

Danny complies, turning away from his mother to slip on the pink undershirt, trying to ignore the slight revulsion (fear) at the color and girly cut.

 

Barely a moment after he is done, his vision is engulfed in fabric. He struggles a bit before accepting his fate as a blob monster, and raises his arms in defeat. Two flappy sleeves come down on them to seal the deal.

 

He is officially dressed and ready for school.

 

His mom kisses him on the head whilst covertly flicking a bit of ectoplasm off of his shoulder (when did that get there) and shoving his beat-up purple backpack at him.

 

Danny hops down the stairs in a hurry, not caring if his mom yells at him for being reckless or whatever, because he is late to school and he _really_ needs to ask Tucker if he did the English homework last night.

 

He also really _really_ wants to just forget this whole morning and pretend that he is _totally_ in control of his emotions.

 

Jazz makes an exasperated noise that sounds like ' _finally_ ' when he reaches downstairs, and falls in stride beside him.

 

He looks up at her in confusion as they practically fly out the door, "Um, Jazz, I thought you were in high school? Shouldn't you already be gone by now?" He can't resist a small teasing remark, "That is, unless, Ms. Perfect is being punished by babysitting the 'widdle' middle schoolers for some reason...?"

 

The older girl looks offended, which is hilarious, "Didn't you hear me yesterday, Danny? I said I'd be walking you to school. I'm going to be giving a presentation about what it's like being a freshman in high school to your year today."

 

She then proceeds to bore the stuffing out of Danny for the next ten minutes describing how she broke down her speech components, what each topic point was about, and even demonstrates a small re-enactment of how she would enter and exit the stage with her _obviously perfect_ opening and closing statements, and don't you think this is just so _perfect_ , Danny?

 

Danny doesn't even bother holding back his groaning and sarcastic ' _so interesting, tell me more_ ' and ' _oh of course it's perfect, Jazz_ '. He also doesn't bother to try and interpret the oddly sly and conniving look his sister would get between breathes.

 

The less he knows, the better. Hopefully.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Because Miss Perfect apparently never lies, there Danny sits in the absolute farthest row from the stage with Tucker during what would have been Math class had _Jazzy-pants_ not interrupted.

 

Jazzy-pants beams at the surrounding students from up front, posing like a political figure on drugs. A microphone is placed much too close to her mouth as she prattles on and on and _on_ about everything that Danny had already heard once that day.

 

Ugh. _So_ boring.

 

"According to a study done by Dr. Ibn of the University of Michigan: students going into their freshman year of high school experience multiple symptoms of stress, and are therefore more likely to make mistakes and succumb to their negative emotions," she leans forward, grin stretching even wider, as if about to divulge in a deep secret, "However, they are _also_ more likely to form strong emotional relationships with those around them in similar situations, so you'll be making a lot of life-long friends during this time!"

 

Danny nudges Tucker and makes a joke about whether or not Jazz is going to pull a fast one and eat the microphone. Tucker only moans a death rattle, which is enough to fuel Danny's 'need for validation' fire for at least a few more hours.

 

Why Jazz feels the need to use citations for this ( _supposed_ to be) five minute speech is beyond Danny. He is trying very hard to become one with his chair, but according to Tucker's agonized gaze, it isn't really working.

 

"Now, I need to talk to you all very seriously, so open your ears."

 

Danny sits up straight, causing Tucker to startle. This is different than what his sister said it would be like on the walk to school.

 

"I have a very big, special, and important reason for being here today, and it isn't just because I'm the valedictorian of my year!" She flips her hair off of her shoulder, and whether by accident or on purpose, it makes her look like a total snob.

 

Danny feels the need to kick something, and pretends to relax and collapse into his seat again.

 

"That very _big, special_ , and _important_ reason is named Danny Fenton, my little brother."

 

Danny's heart stutters, and he exchanges glances with Tucker. He tries to calm down, but he can practically feel the proverbial spotlight shifting onto his desperately folded body.

 

 _This is normal_ , he thinks, _she probably just wants to gush about her little brother going into high school next year. Or my obsession with becoming an astronaut.  
_

 

Probably.

 

"His name is Danny- _not_ Dannielle."

 

Oh, hell no.

 

"And he used to be my little sister."

 

_No._

 

"But he isn't, anymore, and I want everyone to respect that."

 

He can feel a hand on his arm, but something in his mind isn't connecting with his body. It's like he's a temporarily short-circuited laptop waiting for an automatic reboot.

 

"In fact, you're going to meet a lot of people like Danny next year."

 

 _Escape_ , his mind screams, _now!_

 

"After all: There are a lot of people in the world who have _gender identity disorder._ "

 

And so he escapes, loudly, out of his seat and through the auditorium door, running through the hallways to the nearest bathroom like his pants are on fire.

 

As he bursts into the boy's restroom, he nearly collides with a younger boy who was frantically waving his wet hands around. They both startle, and the boy tilts his head in confusion at the red-faced and heavy-breathing person.

 

"Uh- what are you doing?"

 

Danny's breath hitches in terror. This kid must _know_ , somehow, that he wasn't supposed to be there, not really, not like the other boys.

 

_Not like the boys who don't have 'gender identity disorder.'_

 

He haphazardly backtracks and makes his way out of the bathroom. He sprints full tilt to the nearest exit, home bound, with desperate longing for safety and stability on his mind.

 

The sixth grader he left behind slowly wipes his hands on his jeans in confusion. Seconds later, another breathless student throws themselves dramatically into the bathroom just like the first had.

 

"Hey- you! Have you…" big breath, "seen a boy in a badger shirt in here?"

 

Hasty nodding. "Okay, where'd he go?"

 

"I don't know. He ran away before I could ask what was wrong."

 

The older student thanks him and runs just as quickly out of the bathroom as he had blown in.

 

The sixth grader is just about to hunt for some paper towels to _finally_ finish wiping his hands when _another_ student, this time a tall orange-haired high schooler, enters the bathroom with a little bit of panic in her eyes.

 

To save himself the trouble… "No, I don't know where the crying badger boy went!"

 

The girl draws back, furrows her brows, says something like ' _rude_ ', and then is out the door before a conversation could truly occur.

 

The sixth grader sighs, adjusts his admittedly fancy new black tank top binder from under his tee-shirt, and decides to call it a day at this silly school. He is going straight home to write about this… _event_ on his blog.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, the public-speech-outing is based on a true story. It is a really horrifying and vile one, so I suggest you never repeat the actions done in it.


	4. bloody, chunky, smelly fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *menstruation, casual transphobia

 

The youngest Fenton screams into his pillow and resists the urge to toss his ace bandages across the room in a fit of anger.

 

It had been almost two weeks since _the incident_ (somewhere on the internet, a blog was being updated with succinct language and buzz words), as it was aptly named by both Jazz and the ever busy ghost-chasing parents. There had been no mentions around the house about forgiving his sister for her _obviously_ out-of-line actions, for which the thirteen-year-old was thankful.

 

Danny bemoans his existence as a nearly-9th-grader with an extra spray of deodorant in the afternoons. He starts noticing a lot more oil in his hair every day as well, and has taken to showering every morning instead of every other. Granted, his hair will be oily once more by dinner time, but what in the world could a teen do to fight the Ultimate Puberty Smackdown?

 

Danny flops his arched body onto the bed and decides to forego his usual daily appliance of ace bandage. He is at home, no one has bothered him in days, and there are plenty of large, terribly hot clothing to cover his body for today.

 

Perfect plan.

 

Curled up on his bed despite the stifling heat of the summer Saturday morning, Danny shifts his legs in discomfort. Something… _weird_ is going on with his crotch, but he doesn't really have the energy to get up and check it out.

 

 _It's probably just a dry spell_ , he thinks with some disgust, remembering how itchy and dragging the skin could get down there.

 

He sighs, sniffs, and stretches in boredom. He could probably call up Tuck and do something, but, then again…

 

He resists another urge, this time the one to stare at his unbound chest.

 

He picks absentmindedly at the newly sprouted wave of pimples that dotted his forehead. He knows that it will probably leave another red mark, but he could honestly care less about his complexion. His body would just have to deal with being not what he wants it to be right now.

 

He stretches again, and his elongated arms accidentally bump up against the rocket model on his bedside table, causing it to overbalance and fall to his floor with a sharp noise. Danny freezes, then throws himself onto the floor with a roll to follow his destroyed _masterpiece_ (it was $10 at the dollar store, and labelled ages 3-12.)

 

He lands with boneless annoyance, finding that some of the pieces of the rocket had broken off and rolled up under his bed. He clicks his tongue and reaches into the dusty abyss on his hands and knees, barely giving a thought to any possible bugs or expired food that he might've shoved up under there within the past few months.

 

Triumphant, but not without sticky hands, he straightens and stands up with the rocket (and pieces) gathered into his arms. He takes a step forward to right himself, then stiffens at an unknown feeling between his legs.

 

It felt almost like… a gush of warmth?

 

…Oh, _god._

 

He carelessly dumps the rocket onto his bed and speed walks to the bathroom, mortification breeding in his every molecule.

 

Did he just _piss_ himself?

 

He slams the door to the bathroom quite loudly, sits on the toilet, and pulls down his shorts and panties ( _boxers_ , his mind supplies unhelpfully) only to gawk in horror at the sight.

 

There was a streak of brownish-red in his underpants.

 

… …?

 

A scream rattles the Fentonworks house that morning.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Maddie Fenton is a logical woman.

 

Therefore, as a female human made purely of logos, her first instinct when hearing one of her babies scream from the upstairs floor is to immediately grab a weapon and come flying up the stairs to kick down the door with, literally, guns-a-blazing.

 

" _Don't you dare touch my family you ectoplasmic scum!"_

 

" _Aaa-_ Mom!?"

 

Maddie lowers her weapon as she stares at her baby boy, falling off of the toilet with his pants around his ankles.

 

"Oh, Danny! Well…" She drops her weapon altogether in disappointment as her well-trained eyes scan the room and find nothing perilous, "Why did you scream? Are you hurt?"

 

Danny was scrambling to both stand, cover himself, and put his pants on all at once. It wasn't really working.

 

As most things in his life never really worked out the way he wanted them to.

 

"Yea, I'm fi- _wait!_ I mean, no, something is wrong," he then stops what he was doing and awkwardly tries to come up with a way to explain just what the hell happened.

 

Maddie waits patiently, blocking the door and painting a very imposing picture with her full blue jumpsuit on and flashy ecto-gun practically cocked and ready to fire.

 

"There's um… Something weird in my pants? It's…" He grasps at the air with his hand helplessly, "blood?"

 

His mother's body changes its stance quickly, but Danny can't really tell what is going on because her face is covered with obnoxiously large and orange goggles.

 

Instead of saying anything, Maddie makes an agreeable sound (but this isn't funny!) and sticks her head back into the hallway to bellow out, "Jazz? Could you come here for a moment?"

 

"Coming, mom!"

 

_What?_

 

His mom reaches down under the sink to pull out a dark blue package with butterflies on the side and very vague, unhelpful looking diagrams situated along with swirly, cursive paragraphs.

 

Jazz comes up unexpectedly behind her, only getting out an 'yea mom what do you need-' before Maddie had expertly whipped around and aimed the gun at her daughter's face.

 

Jazz lets out a pathetic little 'eep!' at the high whine of the ecto-weapon powering up and pointing right at her face.

 

Maddie smiles sheepishly and lowers her extremely dangerous, lethal, and unrestrained weapon once more. The gun in one hand is a nearly comical juxtaposition with the odd, flowery packaging in her other hand. "Sorry, sweetie."

 

"N-no problem, mom."

 

Danny is getting impatient.

 

"Geez, do you think you two could focus, please?" He grinds out testily from his undignified and pant-less position by the toilet.

 

Both older women turn towards him, one with a simpering expression and the other with a manic grin, "You're finally growing into a young wom- uh" his mother backtracks, her expression slipping, "this is just a part of growing up as someone with your… body type."

 

Danny blinks owlishly, his fingers twitching as if wanting to grab on to his pants again.

 

That explained absolutely _nothing_.

 

Jazz steps forward with a hand on her mother's shoulder, "What she means, Danny, is that you've begun what every young uh…" again with the backtracking, "it's called a menstrual cycle. It's where you shed the lining of your uterus every month. In the form of mucus and blood."

 

That explained absolutely _too much_.

 

"And that's what these here helpful little things are for!" His mom shoves the blue package in his face with flourish, as if he was supposed to accept it like a birthday present he'd been waiting for all his life.

 

As he gingerly grips the sides of the plastic _monstrosity_ , he questioningly looks up into the eyes of his older sister. Thankfully, Jazz understands, and takes the offending item out of his hands before his gloomy disposition could light it on fire in rebellion.

 

She rips it open at the corner and pulls out a pastel yellow _thing._ It has a small white tab that she pulls on, and it makes an awful lot of noise as she unravels what looks like a miniature version of a Pampers Baby Diaper.

 

_What._

 

Danny is passed the new _thing_ accompanied by a long, long, _long_ explanation about how to peel off the adhesive and stick it to the bottom of his underpants in order to stop the, excuse me, _blood flow?_

 

"Excuse me, stop the _blood flow?_ _I'm bleeding out every month for an entire week?_ "

 

Maddie, unhelpfully, began to grin once more, "That's right, sweetie! You've finally joined the ranks of the adults. Now you're just like every other healthy, young, nubile wo-"

 

"Okay, thank you mother! I think I can take over from here." Jazz hastily shoves their mom out the bathroom door before she could mess up the situation even more. With an exasperated sigh, she turns back to her shell shocked little sibling with many more long-winded explanations under her belt.

 

Unfortunately, she doesn't get to use them, as it seems that Danny has turned his sarcasm-defense system back on.

 

"Part of every ' _young woman's'_ life, huh?" He cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed face and stance making the small bathroom feel icy cold.

 

"She was just excited; you know that, Danny," Jazz admonished, bringing her hand up to rub her forehead. "How do you feel about using the pad?"

 

"Hm, well, let me see…" He flaps the pad around, sending small white particles everywhere, "Looks like a diaper, feels like a diaper, smells like a diaper."

 

Jazz nearly groans, just waiting it out.

 

"Well, what do you know? _It_ is _a freaking diaper._ "

 

"Danny…"

 

"Jazz!"

 

" _Danny!_ " She shouts back, equally as fed up with the situation, "I can't change this! Would you rather use a tampon?"

 

Danny curls his lip, "What's a _tampon?_ "

 

Jazz smirks, which is never a good thing. "Oh, it's like the pad, except small and cylindrical, and you shove it up your-"

 

" _No!_ " Danny tosses the pad at his sister's face, "Do _not_ finish that horrible sentence! _Eugh!_ "

 

Jazz laughs, and was subsequently bodily shoved out of the bathroom by the still gagging Danny.

 

 _Worth it_ , she snorts.

 

She is at least grateful that her little brother is speaking to her again.

 

Now – about that order she was going to place…

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny shuffles into his first period (ha!) early Monday morning with a harrowing expression on his face, warning anyone that comes close to him that there would be obstacles to avoid for the rest of the day. Eggshells were to be walked on. Sacrifices made to gods. Blood given to-

 

Oh, gross.

 

 _Never mind with_ that _trail of thought_ , Danny groans as he shifts once more in his seat, hoping that no one could hear the crinkling of plastic like he can. He knows it is probably just himself being paranoid; he had never noticed anyone _else_ on their period.

 

But what if someone _could_ smell that weird, fishy, oily, _decay_ that he could when he has to go to the bathroom? What if someone in that bathroom also hears him opening a pad? What if they burst into the stall, only to see it was Danny 'Danielle' Fenton sitting on the toilet with blood gushing out of his-

 

"Danny!"

 

Danny startles as he avoids Tucker's waving hand, turning to look irritably at his friend, " _What_ , Tucker?"

 

Tucker reels back, gulping, and tries again, "How are you uh… feeling, buddy?"

 

Danny suddenly has a thunderous expression on his face.

 

"Oh. Um. Never mind."

 

Tucker retreats.

 

 _Smart boy_ , Danny's mind hisses.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 10:59 p.m_

_TUK: what was up with you today man_

 

Danny glances down as his phone lit up right as he was about to set his alarm and go to bed. He sniffs once, debates the benefits of answering now or later, and chooses to answer now.

 

_DAN: nothing_

…

_TUK: thats not true and you know it_

_TUK: spill_

…

_DAN: do you know what a period is_

…

…

…

 

Danny's hands start to sweat. What is taking Tucker so long?

 

_TUK: dude_

_TUK: DUDE_

_DAN: WHAT_

_TUK: I am so sorry_

_DAN: …its ok_

_TUK: Do you need anything?_

_DAN: no_

_DAN: i mean i don't think so_

_TUK: Alright_

…

_DAN: its just not fair_

_DAN: and its gross_

_DAN: really gross_

_DAN: and it will hurt at some point ?_

_DAN: im just so scared_

…

_TUK: I'll do what I can to help._

…

_DAN: thnks_

_TUK: im carrying pads and chocolate with me from now on_

_TUK: is that okay?_

…

…

_DAN: thnks tuk_

_TUK: no prob bob_

_TUK: :)_

_DAN: dont start_

_TUK: 8)_

_TUK: ;)_

_DAN: oh my god_

_TUK: :3_

_DAN: shut_

_TUK: (**)_

_DAN: the_

_TUK: :Y_

_DAN: hell_

_TUK: :)_

_DAN: up_

_TUK: :3c_

_DAN: im leaving_

_TUK: :(_

_DAN: and im changing your name back to veggie-man too_

_TUK: D:_

_DAN: night_

_Sent at 11:15 p.m_

 

Danny angrily changes Tucker's contact information in his phone to the emoticons for corn and poop, and _only_ the emoticons for corn and poop, then slams his now silenced phone onto his bedside table.

 

He shoves his grin into his pillow, and attempts to quiet his high, giddy spirits.

 

Everything is going to be fine.

 


	5. its my battle armor youre toying with

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *transphobia, adult antagonizing child, child abuse, emotional neglect

 

"There's my little man," Jack Fenton rumbled from his position at the kitchen stove. His flapjacks were sizzling and coming along quite nicely that early Sunday morning. He'd be darned if he didn't share his little slice of love with someone.

 

And what a better person to share it with than his new son?

 

Danny hovered at the edge of the stairs, apprehensive and almost disbelieving. His eyes were still shot with red - his face swollen and soft-looking.

 

It was the morning after he came out to his family as a trans-boy. It had involved a lot of tears and pulling away, only to be pulled back and demanded for explanations. Eventually, everyone went to bed, but Danny still had the entire night to think up of all the ways that his life could be ruined.

 

They said they accepted him 'no matter what', but to what extent?

 

Hesitantly, Danny shuffled into the kitchen, one hand tugging on his long, slightly curly black hair. His other, unfortunately, was at its near permanent position covering the front of his chest. His entire body was bent forward in order to further swamp his torso in his large sleeping shirt.

 

His dad reached over and ruffled his hair with one big, calloused paw. "How're you feeling this fine morning, Danny-boy?"

 

Danny-boy sniffled, and dug himself into his father's side for comfort, "M'okay, I guess."

 

Jack hummed, and turned back to flipping flapjacks with a big smile on his face. Well, when didn't he have a smile on his face? He had a wonderful family, a house his family could live in, and a profession he both loved and shared with his wife.

 

Perfection.

 

Or, it would be. Today, the perfection wasn't so sweet - his only son was down in the dumps.

 

But Jack Fenton was a man! And as a man, he would do his best to cheer his family up - no matter what!

 

"Your mother and Jazzy-pants are out at your middle school talking to the principal," the large man said without turning around, shoving the food around a bit more in preparation for an awesome flip.

 

Danny moved away from his father's back and, once more, hovered uncertainly in his awkward body. "They are? Already?"

 

Jack laughed a little bit and turned off the stove, reaching upwards into the cabinet for a large plate to put all of the flapjacks on, "Of course, already. Do you think they would forget about you?"

 

Danny sniffed, whether to suck up snot or to smell the totally amazing food his dad just made him. "No," was the garbled answer.

 

His father set the plates and cutlery on the table, then reached into the fridge for some milk. Somehow, the milk was untainted by the suspiciously close ecto-sample also residing in the fridge. It seemed that no one would be in the lab being de-toxified that day.

 

Jack helpfully picked up his son with only one hand and gently placed him in his usual chair, "Well, I didn't make all of this food just for myself, you know!" He winked and shoved Danny with his elbow like it was the best joke he'd ever made, then started piling quite a few pancakes onto the boy's plate.

 

Danny gazed at his father for a moment, taking in his (for once) jumpsuit-less and bear-like body that was still in a white t-shirt and blue striped pajama pants. His salt-n-pepper hair was ruffled beyond comprehension, and Danny couldn't tell where the hair started or ended.

 

Yup, looks like his dad. Not an impostor, then.

 

Danny slowly reached for his fork, body a little less hunched over than it was before. His arm never left his chest, but to his dad, that tentative smile was like Christmas came early.

 

Jack Fenton would miss that long, curly hair.

 

But he would certainly miss his baby boy's smile even more.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Kids! Could you come downstairs for a moment? There's someone on the phone who wants to talk to you!"

 

Danny pokes his head out his bedroom door at the same time that Jazz does, allowing them to trade glances before making their way downstairs to the phone where their mother is standing, hips jutting to the side and slim smile on her face.

 

"Do you all remember Aunt Alicia, my sister?" She opens with, phone still off the hook and waiting in her hand.

 

Jazz answers before he could, "Yea - we went to her wedding when we were younger."

 

Oh, well. No wonder Danny doesn't remember any sort of Aunt Alicia. In fact, he honestly couldn't remember _any_ aunts or uncles being around, but that is probably because of his parents' oddities.

 

His mom shoves the phone at his sister, "Well, why don't you two talk to her, then? I think she has a _great_ surprise to tell you!" And with that, she is off, down the stairs and into the lab where their dad can be heard banging around.

 

Danny and Jazz shrug in tandem. The younger sibling slouches on the couch and absentmindedly scratches at his ace bindings from under his shirt while the older presses the phone to her ear with a 'hello?'

 

After almost five minutes of chattering, most of it being about school or 'life in the city', Jazz makes a sudden choked sound. Danny looks up from picking at his cuticles in question.

 

"My little sis-? Uh… Yeah, Danny's… right… here…" Jazz slowly turns, looking confused, and then cautiously hands the phone down to Danny. He holds it equally as cautiously, then presses it to his ear with a small churning in his stomach, "Hello? Aunt Alicia?"

 

"So I heard you're dressin' like a boy, now."

 

… _Okay?_

 

"Um?" Danny looks at his sister with a strained expression, "I… am… a boy?"

 

Aunt Alicia makes noise that sounded like she is hacking up a lung, but then Danny realizes she must be laughing. "Are you sure about that _, little missy_?"

 

Danny scrunches up his face and thinks (as Jazz would put it) ' _rude._ '

 

"Yes, I am very sure about that, _Aunt Alicia._ " He bites back, fury and fear being pumped from his brain and into his body. Like hell he would go down so easily. Who does Aunt Alicia think she is?

 

Aunt Alicia makes a humming sound, punctuated by her gravely voice. "Well, we'll just see 'bout that. Tell your mother that I'll be there within a week, would you, _Dannielle?_ "

 

Danny grimaces and violently shoves at the arm his sister had put around his shoulders, "No problem." A devilishly evil idea comes to him then, and he leans on the side of the couch and inspects his nails as if posing for someone who couldn't see him, "Can you tell _Uncle Steve_ that I'm looking forward to seeing him again, _Mrs._ _Gautier_?"

 

Aunt Alicia snarls and hangs up the phone, leaving Danny to laugh bitterly and slam the phone down on his end as well, "Haha, yeah – _whatever._ "

 

"Danny! Why would you say that? You know she got a divorce!" Jazz attempts to scold him, but he could tell by her face that she secretly approves of his methods of revenge.

 

Danny scrubs stubby nails through his slightly greasy hair, shrugs, and hops down the lab steps to pass the news to his mother.

 

His gut is telling him this summer would be hilarious, but the rest of him is festering in anxiety at the unknown abuse he is waiting to receive.

 

 _Oh well,_ he thinks at the bottom of the chrome stairs, _at least it'll be a funny story to tell Tuck once it's over._

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny could care less that the side of the table is digging painfully into his stomach. He absolutely _needs_ to maintain eye contact with the enemy.

 

Breaking away would show his fear.

 

Aunt Alicia sits across the kitchen table from Danny and digs into her country style breakfast of eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Her eyes never leave their narrowed position trained on her nephew.

 

Breaking away would show weakness.

 

"Okay!" Maddie claps her hands awkwardly, attempting to break the tension, "Who wants seconds?"

 

But it is not to be; the tension is simply too thick to be cut by a nervous mother.

 

Good thing that Jack Fenton's kind, huggable, and idiotic disposition is thicker.

 

"Don't mind if I do, honey!" He quickly piles more food onto his plate. His tree-trunk of an arm breaks the view between his wife's sister and his son.

 

Danny scowls and pushes himself and his chair away from the table. "I think I'm done eating."

 

Maddie looks down at his nearly full plate, "Are you sure, sweetie? Are you hungry for something else?"

 

"Nah, mom, I'm good. I'm just gonna go talk to Tucker for a bit." He waves off her concerns and thumps up the stairs, stubbornly ignoring the prickling presence of the enemy at his back.

 

This is shaping up to be one _long_ week.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 2:34 p.m_

_DAN: u awake yet_

…

…

_TUK: i am now :\_

_DAN: heh sorry_

_TUK: nbd_

_TUK: whats up_

_DAN: my aunt alicia is here_

_TUK: oh crud_

_TUK: THAT aunt alicia?_

_DAN: yup_

_TUK: ew :P_

_DAN: i know right? she kept staring at me at breakfast_

_TUK: maybe your parents will keep her too busy to mess with you_

_DAN: gee i hope so_

…

_DAN: so how has your summer been so far_

_TUK: hot_

_DAN: youre telling me! most of our air conditioning goes to the lab_

_TUK: sucks; come over to my house then_

…

_TUK: went to the beach, there were babes_

_TUK: so spicy hot B)_

_DAN: uuuugh tuk omg_

_DAN: ur like 12 stooop_

_TUK: hey! you and me both know that im the oldest_

_TUK: 14 is manly!_

_TUK: plus chicks dig young guys_

_DAN: sure tuk sure_

…

 

As the conversation devolves into stifled laughter and terrible puns, Danny drifts into a doze in the warmth of his room.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 8:14 p.m_

_TUK: when are you gonna wake up dude_

…

…

…

_TUK: DANNY_

…

_DAN: waaaaaaaaaaaat_

_TUK: finally_

_TUK: youre gonna mess up your sleep schedule if you keep napping all the time_

…

_TUK: are you okay?_

…

_DAN: let me die in peace_

_Sent at 8:31 p.m_

 

Danny rolls over in his messy sheets, sighing and scratching at his scalp. He is _so_ tired. And it is _so_ easy to just lay around and not have to do anything; he doesn't even have to be asleep to do this.

 

Unfortunately, the world does not smile upon him and his weariness, as his mother took the time to knock on his door loudly and obviously. "Danny? Are you awake?"

 

Danny groans into his case-less pillow and raises his head to grunt out a 'no' before smashing it heavily back into the fluff. His mother is not deterred.

 

"Well, you need to come downstairs. Aunt Alicia has presents for you!" She trills like it's _good news_ or something, before pushing his door open and creating a frankly freezing drift into his musty room.

 

His mother, again, isn't impressed, "Daniel Fenton, you get up this instant! I won't have you lazing around while there's a guest here. You still have chores to do, you know." And with that she opens his door fully and flicks the light on, sending his peacefully dark room into bright chaos.

 

Before she could make another scathing comment over the messy, smelly state of his room, Danny lifts his upper body and mumbles 'I'm up, don't worry, I'm up.'

 

Finally at least somewhat satisfied, his mother moves away from the door and down the hall, presumably to give the same treatment to his sister. Of course, Jazz would probably get less chastising and more 'that's my smart girl!'

 

_Pfft, whatever mom._

 

Danny pulls himself up (a herculean task) and off of his bed towards a suspicious pile of 'clean' clothes in one corner of his room, picking apart the mountain of dark and earth-colored clothing until he finds something he's marginally satisfied with.

 

He realizes that his mom walking in on him still in his pajamas and in bed at 8 o'clock at night probably didn't help his image as a _healthy young teen_ any, but he is really too tired to care what she thinks right now.

 

No; right now, he prepares for battle.

 

Off went the pajama shirt and pants. On went the new pair of black boxers. On wound the ace bandage, leaving a nicely flat chest. On went the brown shorts and gray t-shirt. On went the bravery and strength that was needed to do this every day.

 

On went the invisible war paint.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

 _Off_ went the invisible war paint, cowering away from the pink abomination that is gripped in Danny's clammy hands.

 

He blinks rapidly, trying to clear his cloudy eyes as he takes in the sight that is the baby pink, cow-printed button down his aunt had just unboxed for him.

 

Horror, sickness, and fear churn in various parts of his body.

 

"Well. Danny, go ahead and say thank you. It was very thoughtful of Auntie Alicia to bring you a gift…" His mother coos from her spot on the couch, gripping a disposable camera in her hand but not yet moving to use it.

 

Danny's arms shake as if in effort from holding up the garment. He bites his already chapped lips hard, drawing a bit of blood from broken skin.

 

This… is battle. But he left all of his weapons under his bed. Right along with his courage.

 

Aunt Alicia is staring at him as he limply drops the shirt, not even daring to touch the matching bedazzled blue jeans underneath it. "I'm… I'm gonna go to…" a hiccup, "the bathroom."

 

He stands on unsteady legs and wobbles to the bathroom, praying that no one would follow him.

 

His prayers are not answered.

 

"Sweetie…" his mother sighs, closing the bathroom door softly behind her, "It's just not… okay to some people. You know?"

 

Danny trembles and perches on the closed toilet seat. He suddenly wishes Jazz had followed him instead.

 

"Some people just don't accept that sort of thing…" She tries again. "It's alright to _act_ like this when you're at home, but… Around other people, especially family, maybe you… shouldn't?"

 

Danny breathes in deeply and holds it, keeping his head lowered and gaze far _far_ away from his mother.

 

Maddie wavers, then smooths her son's hair back from his sweaty forehead. She says nothing more and leaves the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar as if waiting for him to come back right as rain from their secretly devastating conversation.

 

 _The world isn't meant for you to live in it,_ his brain says.

 

Danny spends a countless amount of time sniffing quietly and wiping his eyes, trying very hard to keep it all in. Just enough to make it out of the bathroom, up the stairs, and into his room.

 

Just enough.

 

He doesn't look at anyone as he creeps from one room to the other.

 

No one follows him that time.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

He hasn't cleaned his room in _weeks._

 

Said messy teenager shrugs, drops his pile of clean clothing onto the floor, and makes a divot between the dirty and not-dirty piles with his bare foot. It'll do for now.

 

Thankfully, Aunt Alicia hadn't made anymore moves to 'correct' him since the 'girl clothes' fiasco earlier in the week, but she did make a few passive aggressive comments on the side.

 

" _Don't you think it's time you stopped cutting your hair?"_

 

" _Boys won't like short haired girls, you know. Not that I ever_ liked _boys, but you might."_

 

" _Listen; everyone's a little bit gay in their youth. But it isn't a sustainable lifestyle. Just make sure you change back before it's too late, or else you'll regret it, and everyone in your family will regret it."_

 

" _Do you want to be a disappointment to your parents?"_

 

…And so on.

 

Danny sighs and sweeps an arm over his desk, sending a multitude of empty water bottles into the trash bag he is holding up. He makes a face at the sheer number, confused as to how he had drank so many bottles and then just _left_ them there.

 

After Aunt Alicia left that morning, his mother had whirled around with one finger already in the air, ready to be waved. "Now, young man, I've put up with that room of yours all summer. It's time you do something about it before it grows its own ecto-community!"

 

And so here he was, cleaning his messy room for the first time all summer. On one hand, it is a good thing, since that means his sister would change his dirty bed sheets for him ("I can't just leave them there like this!" she would reason, balling up his sheets with an over exaggerated face of disgust.) On the other, it meant he would have to go through all of the _stuff_ he had shoved in weird places.

 

He picks up a slice of moldy pizza from under his bed, wondering how in the world he had just shoved that up under there with no thought as to how he would get it back later.

 

Maybe he's secretly a squirrel?

 

… _Nah._

 

Danny continues to clean his room, not giving any thought to the doorbell ringing twice from downstairs, nor his sister's cry of 'I'll get it!'

 

He eventually makes his way to his door, and kicks the present box his aunt had left behind in disgust, peering into its cardboard folds to see a splash of pink and white fabric. Quickly, he pulls out his phone.

 

_Sent at 12:21 p.m_

_DAN: hey tuk do you want some pink clothes_

…

_DAN: and some bedazzled blue jeans_

…

_TUK: Hell yeah I do._

…

 

Danny gapes at his phone, then shrugs.

 

Well. That took care of that.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Jazz knocks softly on her little brother's door, package under one arm and brave expression on her face.

 

She, miraculously, waits for the signal to 'come in' before opening the door, sticking her head into the relative darkness that was Danny's room. "Can I turn on the light?"

 

"Yea, go ahead." The voice comes from the direction of the bed, and it sounds like it is coming through a wall of fabric.

 

Jazz flicks on the light and moves slowly towards where her brother is spread out face down on his bed, trash bags galore littering his room.

 

"I brought you something; I think it'll cheer you up." She sits down on the bed and pets Danny's hair until he makes a move to roll over. Confusion paints his face as he takes in the medium brown shipping box she holds, "What's that?"

 

Jazz giggles, "Why don't you open it and see, little brother."

 

Danny is suspicious of her very specific use of 'little brother', but complies nonetheless. As he rips open the packaging tape, he wonders if it would be an opposite outfit of the one Aunt Alicia tried to give him.

 

So; a _blue_ cow print button down and _embroidered_ blue jeans?

 

Danny snorts at the image, but abruptly clams up once he sees the insides of the package.

 

It's… a white tank top?

 

Confused even more, he looks up into the grinning face of his sister. "Jazz? What?"

 

Jazz pulls the short white tank top out of the box and holds it up, "It's baby's first real binder! I got it online!" She then layered it to his stunned chest, "You're so tiny though, so I had to get an extra small." She shoves it into his hands and makes a show of turning around and covering her eyes. "Well, don't leave me waiting. Try it on!"

 

Danny breathes in and chokes a little bit, glancing into the box once more to see an identical black tank top also inside.

 

_What in the world?_

 

He shrugs off his sleep shirt and struggles with the tightness of the white binder for a bit. When he finally slides it all of the way on, however, his eyes widen.

 

His chest is flat and his ribs aren't being crushed unevenly.

 

With a whoop of joy, he stands up and flexes his arms, bends over and touches his toes, and does a few torso twists. It really fits! And it doesn't hurt or take a long time to put on!

 

"Oh my gosh - Jazz! You're the best sister ever!" He pounces on his unsuspecting sister, causing them to collapse on the bed with squeals of laughter.

 

Jack and Maddie Fenton halt their work in the lab and listen to the loud, continuous laughter and joyous yelling of their two children and smile at each other.

 

It is all they ever want out of life, really - to hear their children be happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The argument of 'it's okay around us but in public/with family you have to stop' is a common one with parents who only want to _pretend_ that they accept their trans child. Another one is 'well their not from around here/where their from it isn't okay' to try and mask a family member's raging transphobia.


	6. cant spell hello without hell

 

The sound of the car door closing behind him is like a harbinger of pure _doom._

 

"Oh, stop being dramatic, Danny. I can feel it from all the way over here!" Jazz calls back to her stalling brother, slinging her book bag over her shoulder and attempting to cajole him into walking towards the high school with her.

 

Danny takes a big breath and turns to his overly peppy sister, "Can you smell the anxiety, stress, and depression, Jazz? Because I can." He closes his eyes and lifts his face skyward, "I can smell them _all._ "

 

Jazz groans and stomps her way back over to her sibling, grabbing his arm and dragging him with her, "Come on you big baby. Don't leave Tucker waiting forever."

 

" _It's so smelly,_ " Danny whispers with tears in his eyes.

 

" _You're_ smelly," counters his sister. "Look alive, little bro! And try not to get lost – you're spending the next four years of your time here."

 

Danny groans out a ' _great_ ' and slumps along after his older sister, super bummed out about having to get up almost an entire hour earlier than usual for school.

 

"It feels like a crime being up this early." A bedraggled Tucker soon joins them in their trek through the school, stopping outside of the principal's office because apparently Jazz 'needs to have a few words with Ms. Ishiyama.'

 

"My thoughts exactly," Danny agrees, taking in his friend's appearance with a grain of salt. After all, Danny probably looks about ten times worse.

 

Self-consciously, Danny scrubs a few dirty, pink-bitten nails through his fringe-heavy hair. It points skyward with some help from his admittedly gross head oils. His actions expose his pimply, red sore dotted forehead in the process.

 

Tucker says nothing because he's a true friend.

 

After a few minutes of the two boys standing around looking like death warmed over, both Jazz and the principal finally step outside into the empty florescent-lit hallway.

 

"Hello, Mr. Fenton and Mr. Foley. How are my two new students doing this morning?" The principal says with an annoying bright voice and a saccharine smile.

 

Tucker steps up to speak because he's a _true friend,_ "We're doing alright, Ma'am. How are you?" He punctuates this polite question with a dimply smile and a head tilt.

 

 _Wow, he's laying it on thick_ , Danny observes while chewing the flesh inside his mouth - making weird faces and not even noticing. Jazz does, however, and covertly steps on his foot.

 

'Pay attention!' Her eyes scream.  Danny mourns the use of his left toes.

 

"I'm doing just marvelous, thank you Mr. Foley." She smiles again and turns her attention a few feet to the right, landing on Danny.

 

Danny makes an effort to smile. It probably doesn't work.

 

"Hello, Danny! My name is Megan Ishiyama – I'm your principal," she leans forward into his personal bubble like she's about to shake his hand, but doesn't, "Now, Miss Jasmine here has told me all about your situation, and I just wanted to say that Casper High is a very friendly and open Gay and Transgender space. So you have nothing to worry about!"

 

Danny clears his throat and makes a vague, kind of positive body motion, "Thanks." It still comes out a bit choked and garbled, but Principal Ishiyama must be a trooper who deals with prepubescent kids all the time, because she does nothing but nod and smile back.

 

"Why don't you two run along to get your schedules from the library and meet your new homeroom teachers?"

 

Tucker nods and grabs Danny's arm to drag his stiff friend away. "Will do!"

 

Danny huffs. What is _with_ these people and dragging him places today?

 

As soon as they turn the corner to a new hallway, Danny shrugs Tucker's lingering arm off, "Alright, that's enough with the pulling!" He adjusts his binder (still a month later, the novelty of a _real binder_ has yet to wear off) slightly and pulls his t-shirt and jacket combo back into place.

 

Tucker raises an eyebrow at the attitude, "Hey, I was just helping you out of your funk. No need for… all that," he waves his hands around vaguely.

 

Danny scowls, " _You just gestured to all of me!_ "

 

"Well, there isn't exactly a whole lot of _you_ to gesture _at._ "

 

Danny gasps in disbelief, "You're, like, _four inches_ taller than me! _That's barely anything!_ " He straightens his back and snatches Tucker's red beret off of his head, "Don't act so high and mighty!"

 

Tucker grabs his precious hat back, jamming it onto his head, "Yeah, well at least I'm not five-foot- _nothing._ "

 

As his friend stutters out an angry response, Tucker laughs mockingly and turns around to continue walking- only to smash right into a wall.

 

Or a person.

 

"Excuse you? Watch where you're going, puny."

 

Danny grabs onto Tucker's shirt to pull him away from the walking-human-wall. They both crane their heads up in disbelief at the astoundingly tall and muscular freshman.

 

"Uh, hi…?" Tucker squeaks out uncertainly, further stepping back and pushing Danny along with him.

 

If Danny had one word to describe the person they just walked into, it would be _meathead._

 

Meathead is a six foot 9th grader who already appeared to have a chip on his shoulder, as he only sweeps a broad arm around the two smaller freshman with a ' _whatever_ ' and pushes them aside.

 

Tucker and Danny's eyes follow their fellow year mate until he turns the corner to another hallway, in which they quickly start to grapple at each other with wide eyes.

 

"Dude!"

 

" _Dude!_ "

 

"I know, right?"

 

"That was…"

 

"What a _meathead._ "

 

Tucker sputters, "Danny, you're gonna get yourself beat up."

 

A cheeky grin, "I know."

 

Tucker rolls his eyes at the predictable answer, but smiles all the same. "Come on – we need to pick up our schedules in the library first. I'm saying this because I _know_ you weren't listening to Ishiyama before."

 

Danny makes a face that says ' _But_ _I_ totally _knew that!_ ' and dutifully follows his friend.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Welcome, class, to your 9th grade homeroom. I am Richard Lancer. I will also be your English and Writing teacher," The portly, balding man with tasteless facial hair intones from the front of the room. He apparently hadn't bothered to check the white board behind him because there is a suspiciously phallic shaped mushroom crudely drawn in red marker.

 

No one says anything because they are all secretly dead inside.

 

"Each of you have a packet placed on your desk," he points downwards as if no one could see the extremely thick stacks of paper in front of them. "If you would please follow along as I go through school guidelines, and sign where I instruct you to sign. We will try to get this painful process over with as quickly as possible."

 

_Ugh._

 

Tucker and Danny glance at each other from their side-by-side seats with matching expressions of agony.

 

_Agreed._

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

By the time they could escape Mr. Lancer, their first period block is already almost entirely spent. So; instead of trying to have a first period within only fifteen minutes, the office has decided to give them all their locker numbers early and set them loose upon the halls to mingle.

 

Walking away from the room with the inappropriate drawing quickly (" _Moby Dick!_ " is heard shouted down the hallway. Students flee. And laugh.) Danny turns to Tucker and says he has to go to the bathroom first. Tucker nods, takes the paper with Danny's locker number on it, and is swallowed in the chaos of three hundred 14/15 year olds all simultaneously trying to find one specific number out of many.

 

Danny slips into the boy's restroom, thankful to be both out of the crowd and to find the room to be an empty reprieve. He closes himself into a sitting stall and digs into his cargo pants for a pad.

 

Unfortunately, his menstrual cycle landed him right in the thick of things just in time for his first day of high school. Therefore, he carried several emergency pads stashed inside of his numerous deep pockets. He probably went overboard with the amount of pads he is carrying (Tucker has kept his word and carries at least one pad everyday no matter what) but there is no way in hell he's going to bleed through his pants on the first day of school.

 

As he is pulling up his pants and ready to leave, the bathroom door leading to the hallway swings open loudly. Started at the turn of events, Danny freezes, unwilling to open the stall door to tempt fate and walk past the unknown possible adversaries.

 

Double unlucky – the stall door bangs open in front of Danny, eliciting a small shriek from his throat as he draws himself back from a tall, familiar figure.

 

It's meathead. Behind him is an equally tall and muscular figure.

 

Effectively blocked and cornered in his stall, Danny smiles in absolute terror, "C-can I help you?"

 

Meathead looks him up and down once before talking over his shoulder at meathead #2, "This is him."

 

 _Oh my god,_ Danny thinks, _I'm actually going to get beaten up. In a bathroom!_

 

Meathead #2 steps forward with a slightly more kind face, "Hi, are you Danny Fenton?"

 

Danny nods quickly, belatedly wondering if he should have lied.

 

"Well, um… I'm Kwan Liu and this is Dash Baxter," the Chinese American points to himself and then the white Aryan-like person beside him, "And I was wondering if you had a pad?"

 

Danny blinks, "Yes…?"

 

Kwan sighs in relief, "Oh gosh, could I have one? This is really embarrassing; my period is a bit early and I totally wasn't expecting it!"

 

Danny nervously digs into a pocket and hands a light blue package over, "Here. It's a large with wings. Hope you don't mind."

 

Kawn shakes his head, "No, thanks!"

 

"Um, if I could ask… How did you know that I'm uh…?"

 

"Trans?" Kwan smiles, wide lips and no bite.

 

"It's because your hot sister is a loud-mouth, that's why," Dash butts in with no tact what-so-ever.

 

Danny feels at least a _little bit_ defensive of his sister, but has to concede. She did _literally_ publicly out him to about a hundred people last year without his consent.

 

And now she apparently _continued_ to out him without his consent.

 

 _Thanks, Jazz.  Truly, you are a stellar example of an older sibling,_ Danny thinks sarcastically. _  
_

 

"I'm going to go put this on. Wait for me?" Dash nods at his friend as Kwan disappears into a neighboring stall, the sounds of crinkling plastic following him.

 

Danny and Dash share a silent moment of contemplation.

 

"So, who else is like… me and Kwan? If you know?" Danny asks bravely, hoping to find more friendly faces within the swarm.

 

Dash gets a shifty-eyed look before leaning forward into the stall, hand coming up to cover his mouth in secrecy despite being in a closed bathroom, "The ones I know of for sure are Kwan and Star. They transitioned together in fifth grade. They date on and off every year, but no one knows when or how it even happens." He then straightens up and adopts a closed off pose, "But you didn't hear that from me, 'kay?"

 

"'Kay," Danny agrees.

 

"There's also this weird… girl? Boy? Heck if I know. Their name is Manson." He scratches his chin, which actually holds some blonde stubble on it. "They look like a fat purple goth. You can't miss 'em."

 

Danny blanches at the rude comments that continued to flow out of this boy. What a jerk!

 

…But a helpful one.

 

"Hm. Thanks, I guess."

 

"Don't mention it." He grins, feral and _all_ bite, "Literally. _Don't._ "

 

"Gotcha'."

 

"Hey, you two done chatting yet?" Dash and Danny turn to see Kwan tossing blue paper into the trash bin and waiting by the door, "Don't you need to hurry up and find your locker, Danny? It's been ten minutes out of fifteen already."

 

_Oh, shoot!_

 

"Yup, see you later!" Danny rushes out of the bathroom and frantically searches the crowd for Tucker.

 

"Danny! Over here!"

 

Danny whirls towards the sound of the voice and finds Tucker jumping up and down to be seen over the obviously-taller-than-fair heads gregariously grouping the hallway. He grins in relief and fights his way through the throng of people to his friend's savior of a voice.

 

"Nice timing – I almost left without you." Tucker hands his paper number over, "Your locker is right next to mine. The bottom one, not the top."

 

"Thanks man, don't know what I'd do without your extra four inches." Danny sticks his tongue out cheekily and swirls his locker combination into motion.

 

Tucker beans him in the back of the head with a squishy stress ball.  Danny retaliates by reaching one arm back blindly and _honk_ ing Tucker's nose.

 

"Could you two boneheads move? I'm _trying_ to get to my _locker._ "

 

Both boys cease their mock battle (one of many) and turn to greet the owner of the slightly annoying and nasally voice.

 

 _She's not fat per se_ , Danny's mind observes, _not like Mr. Lancer, at least._

 

The purple Goth in front of them is indeed chubby, but also about three inches taller than Tucker and thus seven inches taller than Danny.

 

Danny's survival instincts tell him that Manson could probably crush him with just their harsh purple gaze, and so he keeps his mouth shut and moves aside without making too much eye contact.

 

Tucker has no such instincts.

 

"Why, hello there, my lady. Would you like some assistance in reaching your locker?" Tucker waggles his eyebrows, leaning forward with both hands behind his back.

 

"Drop. Dead." Manson shoves Tucker out of the way until he collides harshly with Danny, paying the two _fools_ no mind as she reaches for her locker and quickly spins the code, shoves some objects inside, then slams the protesting metal shut with _one arm._

 

And that was that.

 

"Uh – We'll see you later!" Tucker cries to the retreating figure, waving his arm as if they would turn around and wave back. "I think she likes me."

 

"I think you're an idiot and that they're gonna kill you," Danny pipes up with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. "'My lady?' _Seriously?_ "

 

"Hey, don't dis the moves! They'll work eventually." Tucker winks down at his friend and shoves his rusty locker closed with the combined force of _two_ arms and some grunting. "Man! When were these lockers even built? I can barely close mine!"

 

Tucker looks down to realize that Danny _couldn't_ close his, and bends down to assist his friend. "I'd complain to the principal, but it looks like everyone else has the same problem."

 

Sure enough, other students are seen either struggling to open and close their rusty lockers or showing off by wrangling the metal with one arm, no problem.

 

Danny looks down the hallway to see Dash, Kwan, and an unknown slim - yet equally as tall redhead - all a part of the group who are showing off their strength by shutting lockers one-handed. He feels the prickling of envy in his chest, but has to look away when he feels Tucker _dragging_ him somewhere _yet again._

 

Danny growls and mimes snapping his teeth at his friend's hand. Tucker hastily lets go with his hands held up in surrender, wry smile on his face.

 

Danny pretends that he _isn't_ the shortest person in their year as he makes his way down the hall to his second period.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Upon arriving at the supposed second period Sociology classroom, however, a problem was posed in the form of Manson sitting in the front row right next to the only two empty seats available.

 

Tucker is either _really stupid_ or is taking one for the team, because he sidles right up to them and plops his butt in the seat with a hand raised and waiting to be shaken, "Hi. I'm Tucker Foley."

 

The purple Goth glares from under their V-cut bangs and hisses out, "Sam Manson." She completely ignores the hand.

 

Tucker plays it off by scratching the hair under his hat. "This shorty behind me is my best friend, Danny Fenton."

 

Danny looks up as he was about to tentatively sit on the seat between an unknown brown-skinned kid and the known brown-skinned boy. His eyes meet Manson's, and he immediately pulls them down and to the floor in fear.

 

 _I'm gonna die_ , Danny trembles in his seat like the baby he is.

 

Apparently both immune to Manson's stare and ignorant to his 'best friend's dilemma, Tucker tries to invite Manson to sit at lunch with them. They say they'd think about it, then dig a compact mirror out of their bag to re-apply their lilac colored lipstick.

 

Tucker bobs his head in triumph and leans towards Danny with a conspiring expression.

 

On Danny's other side, the unknown Indian kid tries to get closer to engage in conversation with their desk mate. "Hi, I'm Kum-"

 

They abruptly stops their nervous introduction as they meet the strained, fathomless blue eyes of the internally screaming Danny.

 

"Uh… Er… Maybe some other time."

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny flops dramatically onto his bed, completely worn out from his first day of high school.

 

Manson had ended up sitting with them at lunch that day, but didn't react to any form of communication. They only sat there with their hands steepled in front of their mouth, gazing into a wall some feet away. Danny was too afraid to talk due to her presence, so everyone spent the lunch time in stony silence.

 

He felt bad for Tucker, who had tried to start a conversation several times with either of the two sitting at the lunch table, but Danny was too freaked out and Manson was too… _freaky_ to respond.

 

Hopefully, tomorrow wouldn't be so… _weird._

 

Jazz breezes into his room like she owns the place and plops herself onto the edge of the bed with a bounce and an excited expression. "So? How was your first day? Make any new friends?" She doesn't even let him open his mouth before she continues, "I heard from my friend Marcy who heard from her friend Starr who heard from her boyfriend Kwan that _you_ and Tucker sat with a certain _Sam Manson_ today at lunch."

 

He sighs, chin digging painfully into his bony arm, "Yup. It was _pretty_ weird."

 

Jazz frowns at the news, "Why? Isn't she your friend now?"

 

Danny grimaces and closes his eyes, "No. I don't think they even like me very much." His mind went back to Manson's grave stare that seemed to follow him whenever they were in the same room together. He shivers.

 

"Oh… Well… That sucks, because I gave her your number in the hallway after lunch."

 

Danny scrambles wildly from his laying position, accidentally elbowing an unprepared Jazz in the face, "You did _what?_ "

 

His sister cringes and tries to dampen his fire, "I just thought that – you're so shy! You would probably never make the first move, so I decided to help you along."

 

"Make the first – I'm not _making_ any _moves on_ any _one!_ "

 

As if the gates of hell opened themselves, his phone pings from the corner of his bedside table.

 

Jazz freezes guiltily, seeing the dead expression on her little brother's face. "I'll just… leave you to it then." She hurries back to her room like a _coward._

 

Danny breathes out loudly and collapses from his high-strung kneeling position on the bed. He reaches over to his phone and gingerly unlocks it, holding the item as far away from his face as possible.

 

_Sent at 4:35 p.m_

_Unknown: Your sister gave me your number._

 

Danny feels a little bit of himself die on the inside.

 

_Unknown: This is Kwan!_

 

…Oh.

 

He quickly changes the Unknown number to Kwan and saves it in his contacts.

 

_DAN: hi, kwan. did you need something?_

_KWAN: Nope! Just wanted to ask if you were going to join the football team?_

_KWAN: also to add you to this group chat while you arent looking :)_

 

Danny pauses and looks down at his body. His incredibly small, possibly underfed body.

 

_DAN: no, probably not._

_DAN: wait what group chat_

_KWAN: Aw, bummer! We could use more people like us on the sports teams, you know?_

_Unknown1: this group chat fenturd_

_KWAN: haha don't get mad at me Danny!_

_Unknown2: Hi danny im starr! ;P_

_Unknown1: this is Dash_

_Unknown1: don't ever call me for anything or I will yell at you over the phone  
_

 

Danny scrambles to change names and create contacts in his phone, disbelieving of the situation he has gotten himself into.

 

Why couldn't his sister keep her big nosy-nose out of his life?

 

_DAN: okay so why are we all here? why am I here?_

_KWAN: Well 1 your sister asked me to_

_DASH: hot sister_

_KWAN: and 2 because we all have something in common!_

_KWAN: except Dash. Hes just here._

_DASH: seriously don't EVER call me. or text me outside of this. i WILL pummel you._

_STARR: aww dashiel don't be so mean! :*_

_DASH: don't give me that kissy face starr_

_STARR: xoxoxoxox lol! you know you cant resist!_

_KWAN: lol_

_DAN: ? ? ?_

_DAN: so is this like_

_DAN: if one of us ever needs help we use the chat group?_

_KWAN: Yeah, like some kind of batman signal._

_KWAN: Like today, when I needed that pad. You were a real lifesaver, man._

_DAN: i see_

_DAN: well thnks for adding me i guess_

_STARR: no prob bob!_

_Unknown: HEY WHO FORGOT TO WAIT FOR ME_

_DAN: who is that_

_KWAN: It's Paulina. She's also just here._

 

Danny changes her name as quickly as possible, aware of his phone nearly constantly vibrating with messages as he does so.

 

_PAULI: I TOLD YOU I WAS HELPING MY ABUELA_

_PAULI: BUT DID YOU ALL LISTEN? NOOOO_

_DASH: sorry Paulina won't happen again_

_DAN: hi paulina? im sorry, i dont think i know everyone here yet_

_STARR: oh hell danny go ahead and dig your own grave why dont you_

_KWAN: D:_

_PAULI: WELL YOU DO NOW_

_PAULI: AND DONT YOU EVER FORGET MY NAME OR MY FACE POCO PERDEDOR_

_Sent at 5:52 p.m_

 

Danny looks down in confusion as Paulina sends an attachment via message to him specifically. Inside is a picture of a young Latina girl holding a small white dog and making a kissy face at the camera. Her makeup is impeccable.

 

Danny is impressed.

 

The group chat appears to be moving along just fine without him there to add any comments, so he puts his phone down and forgets all about the fact that Jazz had stupidly given out his number to random people without his consent.

 

_Again._

 

Fingers and brain tired from existing in general, Danny flops back down once more onto his bed with a sigh and decides to tell Tucker all about his crazier-than-usual afternoon later. After a nap. A really long nap that would probably stretch into tomorrow.

 

...His forgotten phone _ping_ s from somewhere on the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I kind of have no idea how high schools work because I've never been to one, so please bear with me while I use only suggestions and media influence to make Casper High make a little bit of sense.


	7. worldbuilder (shit filter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *breakdowns/meltdowns, antagonism, transphobia, depression and executive dysfunction

 

"Keep 'em closed, okay? Still walking, walking, walk- oh watch out for that edge. You hit it. Owch. That's fine, keep walking… And… Open your eyes!"

 

Danny opened eyes previously clenched with both pain and excitement to take in the view of his thirteenth birthday cake.

 

The first thing he noticed was that it was very blue. The second thing he noticed is that it was _way_ more on fire than it should have been, and his sister was freaking out while his father was uncharacteristically resigned at the cake's fate. The third thing he noticed made him sit down (collapse) heavily with a breathlessness he hadn't ever felt.

 

The cake's bubbly blue scrawl said 'It's a boy!'

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 6:01 p.m_

_Unknown: This is Sam Manson._

…

…

…

_Unknown: You're probably asleep already. You seem like the kind of guy who naps a lot._

…

…

…

_Unknown: See you at lunch tomorrow, Danny._

_Sent at 6:45 p.m_

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Did you charge your phone last night?" His mother zips past him with a glowing, humming bio-hazard locked tight between steel pliers, barely even giving a glance over her shoulder as to ascertain whether or not her child is ready to go to school before disappearing downstairs.

 

Danny's mind stalls; he knows he didn't charge his phone but he isn't exactly rolling in excuses at the moment. Nor did he have the time to go back upstairs to charge it. So, he lies, "Yeah, of course."

 

"Good boy!" His father bellows, also jogging past him and down the lab stairs with a rough hair tousle and a smile, "Make sure you keep your phone on and charged at all times!" He holds his pointer finger up and jogs backwards like he is being filmed for an infomercial.

 

Danny, once again, feels like a dog. It shows on his face.

 

"C'mon little brother. I'll drive you to school today."

 

Danny snorts, "What, so you can _apologize_ for what you did the other day?"

 

Jazz doesn't stop in her power walk out the door, so Danny just rolls his entire head in exasperation and follows with a slump in his step.

 

Jazz also doesn't look him in the eyes while getting into the small silver car. It is incredibly suspicious, but also disconcerting. His sister was usually the one to be drilling _him_ for answers, not the other way around.

 

He sighs, _guess I have to speak up now._

 

He is _so_ not looking forward to this.

 

"Hey, Jazz? Why _did_ you give my number out to so many people?" He opens with, hoping to ease into the whole ' _how dare you, you traitor; now I have to socialize with people other than my family and Tucker.'_

 

Jazz adjusts herself in her seat, hands never leaving the proper clock measurement positions on the wheel. "I got the idea online. A blog post about how to introduce an… _introverted_ sibling into a new school if you yourself were the older sibling. It seemed like a really good idea, since no one at Casper High has made an LGBT+ club yet."

 

She chews her lip, uncharacteristically destructive towards her body. She seems genuinely worried that Danny wouldn't make any friends, or maybe that he wouldn't meet the right people.

 

Impulsively, as usual, Danny doesn't think before opening his mouth. "Yeah, but you get _all_ of your ideas off the internet. And they don't always work out. Especially not this time! Have you seen the way Manson looks at Tucker and me? Feels like being stuck in a cage with a tiger…"

 

He waits for her usual reply of ' _oh Danny you silly, depressed boy who knows less than me about the world and is also younger therefore I have the right to monologue at you'_ to his constant whining, then becomes concerned when there is none. Face scrunching in confusion, he looks up from his window view to question his sister.

 

Jazz looks like a gutted fish.

 

_Shoot._

 

"Oh, uh… Not that your ideas are _all_ _bad_ or anything!" He waves his hands around, grasping for something to say without messing this up even more, "I mean – The idea you got for the binder worked really _really_ well, I think! And you got that one from the internet, remember?"

 

Jazz still looks a bit unsure. It is really weird and _freaking Danny out_ , so he tries some more.

 

"You also got the idea for my thirteenth birthday from online. Remember all the forums you joined about how to accept your gender non-conforming kid and/or sibling? That was really smart of you and it helped me _a lot_." Danny is laying it on thick, but _still_ not thinking before speaking. He just accidentally spilled some of his heart out.

 

Thankfully his impulsive, strangely personal and emotional thoughts work on his sister's psyche, because she brightens up and even takes her eyes off the road for a moment to smile at him. "Yea, you're right! It was a great idea, wasn't it?"

 

Crisis averted, Danny slumps back into his seat. His body feels like a live wire from all the tension he just went through. "Yup. The bestest."

 

Jazz nods to herself, "Totally! So that means that you're just so terribly thankful that I gave your number out to a bunch of people I think you'll like, right? And you couldn't say anything because you're an emotionally stunted teenager due to all of the neglect and ecto-experimentation our lousy, emotionally stunted parents have put you through!" She snaps the fingers on one hand like she had just had a massive breakthrough, "Aw, Danny, you're so thoughtful!"

 

Danny blanches.

 

"You're such a good kid, too! Everyone's going to love you _so much_."

 

Danny feels a scratch in his throat and pressure in his head. It makes it very hard to think. Or do anything, really.

 

"I'm so glad you're my baby _brother._ "

 

Danny feels the need to cough. Or choke. Or die. Or _something_ – the pressure is _unbelievable._

 

"I'm _so proud of you!_ "

 

Danny sobs, big wet tears flowing down his face.

 

Jazz almost wrecks the car in her haste to pull over to the side of the road.

 

"Danny? _Danny!_ Baby bro, what's wrong?" Jazz quickly unbuckles her seat belt in order to get closer to her brother, who is sobbing and choking and looking like even more of a mess than usual.

 

Danny doesn't – _cannot_ – say anything. As soon as Jazz is within grabbing range, he latches onto her like a tumor and buries his snotty, oily face into her bony shoulder, catching some of her long orange hair in the fray. Jazz clutches onto him just as fiercely, multi-tasking and somehow maneuvering them into the backseat of the car to stretch out.

 

"Shh, shh, Danny, you're okay, you're fine," she hums and rocks him back and forth, rubbing the small surface area of his back in soothing circles. He keeps crying at an increasingly harsh rate, breaths becoming more ragged and hard to control.

 

"Please breathe, Danny. You're safe. Nothing's wrong, you're fine…" Jazz reaches over to the driver's side door and cracks open a few windows before replacing her hand on his back, continuing to rub and rock and hum and _worry_ because Danny still wasn't stopping.

 

She can only hope that being patient means doing the right thing.

 

The siblings never make it to school, the older of the two calling them in sick in a soft conversation with the principal, passed out younger sibling snoozing on her lap.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 8:31 a.m_

_TUK: Are you okay?_

_TUK: Or are you just late for homeroom?_

…

…

…

_DAN: get my assignmetns fgor me would yu plz_

_DAN: thnks_

_TUK: Danny? Are you okay?_

…

…

_TUK: Danny seriously come on._

…

…

…

_Sent at 11:05 a.m_

_Unknown: Are you okay?_

_Unknown: Foley looks like he's about to eat the table._

…

_Unknown: We share two classes without Foley, so I'll get your assignments in those._

_Unknown: Feel better, Danny._

_..._

_..._

_..._

 

Danny shuffles out from under the cocoon of covers in his dark room, nose bumping into his phone and causing him to shriek hoarsely in surprise when it vibrates on contact. He narrowly avoids chucking the thing out the open window when he notices an army of built up texts. Surprisingly, none of them are from the boisterous chat group.

 

But almost half of them are from Sam Manson.

 

Danny chews the bloody, scabby skin around his dirty nails, wondering how in the world he'll talk to someone he feels like is going to eat him alive if he doesn't constantly keep up a mantra of prayer in his head.

 

_Sent at 3:29 p.m_

_DAN: thnks sam_

_SAM: It's Manson._

 

Danny feels like sobbing again. Another breakdown couldn't hurt, right?

 

_SAM: But you're welcome, Danny._

 

Before he could stop himself, he sends off another quick-fire text, miffed.

 

_DAN: hey how come im danny but your manson_

_SAM: You're*_

 

Oh, _god._

 

_SAM: And that's because I haven't given you permission to say my first name yet._

_SAM: What if I don't prefer Sam?_

 

 _Point,_ Danny concedes.

 

_DAN: well what if i dont prefer danny?_

_SAM: Well, I'm pretty sure you don't prefer Dannielle; am I right?_

 

Danny seethes. Why is talking to Manson so _infuriating_? He should've kept his mouth shut and fingers still. He never should've answered their text as if they were _friends_ or something.

 

_DAN: nvm_

_Sent at 3:42 p.m_

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

The locker next to his head is slammed closed with gusto, forcing Danny to look into the purple eyes of Sam Manson.

 

Well, _up_ into the purple eyes of – Danny groans at his subconscious. _Stop rubbing in how short I am!_

 

Minty green gum pops in his face, "Here's our History assignment. It's due next week on Monday. There was nothing assigned in Pre-Algebra, but make sure you remember to complete your work packet by Friday."

 

Danny blinks rapidly in fear of flying spittle and reaches blindly for the sheet of paper, "Sure. Thanks."

 

Manson grins unkindly, lips devoid of any artificial colors that day, "No problem, _Danny._ "

 

Danny must be making a pretty disgusting face because Manson laughs right in it, turns around, and heavily stomps off with their combat boots and chains making plenty of noise to alert everyone in the hallway that Sam- _freaking_ -Manson was on the move.

 

 _What a prick_ , Danny thinks cattily as he angrily tries to wrestle his locker shut, _why the heck would Jazz ever give_ them _my number thinking it was a good idea?  
_

 

The worst part is that Manson would still sit at lunch with him and Tucker every day. She started to bring extremely green and formless lunches, causing Tucker to shiver in disgust every time he dared glance over at her. She would also randomly snort or say ' _wow_ ' sarcastically at different points in the conversation, as if she herself was a part of Tucker's absentminded and sprawling stories.

 

If Tucker didn't regret inviting Manson to sit with them at lunch that first day, he sure is regretting it now.

 

 _Speaking of…_ Tucker is stomping down the hallway, equally as loud as Manson had been sans giant steel-toed boots and aesthetic dangling pant chains. His face looks furious.

 

"Did you see that?" He points rudely behind him, almost hitting a girl in the face, "She bumped into me! _Bumped into me! On purpose!_ " His voice becomes high and shrill. "She even looked me in the eyes as she did it!"

 

Tucker is spitting mad. Danny would know, because Tucker's spit had migrated onto Danny's _face._

 

Danny makes a disgusted expression _again_ , but Tucker must take that as if he was agreeing or something, because he continues with his rant all the way into homeroom. Thankfully, Manson was assigned to a different homeroom, so Tucker doesn't accidentally (or purposefully) try to throw down in the middle of the room with the offending purple Goth.

 

"Mr. Foley! If you would _please_ be quiet, I would _like_ to call _roll,_ " Mr. Lancer shouts, drawing the attention of the whole class to the fuming Tucker, "Unless you would like to come up here and call roll for me…?"

 

Tucker crosses his arms with anger still prominent on his face, shaking his head in disagreement. 

 

Seeing that that was as good as he would get out of the salty teen, Mr. Lancer goes on to calling roll with a self-important air about him. The markers to the room's whiteboard are boldly placed in a clear, locked case on the front desk. All of the red markers are missing.

 

Barely a few seconds later, Tucker appears to drop one of his many technological doo-dads out of his pocket, and bends over to pick it up. On his way, however, he slips a folded up piece of paper into Danny's lap.

 

Danny stiffens at the contact, fingers searching in his lap and carefully, _quietly_ unfolding the note with the practiced precision of a child who has been friends with a frequent note-passer since early educational times.

 

_what the hell did manson want with you? did she bother you?_

 

There is a tiny angry face drawn in the corner. Danny fights a nearly losing battle not to snort with laughter as he sneakily scratches a reply.

 

_got my homework for history and math  
_

 

Danny delicately folds the paper once more and expertly tosses it back to Tucker. 'Expertly' meaning he tossed it as fast as he could while Mr. Lancer wasn't looking and hoped for the best.

 

Homeroom dismisses before Tucker could write a reply, so they toss the note into the trash as they walk out and into their first period, which is Science. That means assigned lab partners, which means sitting by Starr instead of Tucker, which means not finishing their conversation, which means that Tucker will continue to be an unhappy camper and generally exist in a bad mood for another few hours until lunch.

 

Great. Fantastic.

 

 _I'm going to have to deal with that bad mood later_ , Danny mentally groans as he sets up his notebook next to Starr.

 

They don't speak, which would have been odd to Danny in the first week, but by now it was old hat. Apparently, there exists a weirdly present hierarchy in Casper High, and Danny isn't a part of the same tier as Starr. He doesn't really know what tier he is _supposed_ to be, as he hasn't heard hide nor hair on the subject from the group chat other than a few vague references to something called 'The A-Listers.'

 

But he doesn't particularly feel like that close of a friend to the people in the group chat so he says and asks nothing. He is starting to wonder why they even added him – he stays quiet most of the time unless someone cries for a pad or an oversized shirt and he happens to be close enough to deliver.

 

Tucker sits across the room next to a kid named Kumar who likes to give Danny weird looks every day in second period Sociology. Danny ignores them, despite their near constant frequency; it seemed like a lot of people give him weird looks in this school.

 

Maybe it's because he hasn't showered in almost a week...

 

He resists the urge to lift his arm and sniff his pit. If he smells, looking nervous about being smelly isn't going to make his life any easier. He is just thankful that his parents don't seem to care too much that his hair is a knotty mess of oil, and still give him occasional head pats.

 

Jazz, however, had left a brand new hair brush on his bed the week before. He 'accidentally' broke it. Just like how he 'accidentally' lost his last one under his monster of a bed.

 

"Okay, class! Who-o's a yearnin' for some learnin'?" Msr. Locklear claps their hands together from the front of the room, accidentally spilling something viscous down the sink at their elbow with swinging black braided hair. Someone groans from the front row and keels over, heavy pungent fumes causing them to pass out.

 

Msr. Locklear only leans forward in confusion and, taking a big whiff of the spilled concoction, says "I don't smell anything," before pulling the 'Lab Alarm' and filing everyone out mere minutes after class had officially started.

 

Most students complain loudly at the course of events, especially the ones delegated to bodily drag their comatose friend from the room, but Danny is always reminded of his parents when around Msr. Locklear, so he feels a sort of twisted affection blocking any malice for the teacher.

 

"Just another day at Casper High," an unknown student quips from their wall-leaning position next to Danny in the hallway.

 

Just another day, indeed.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 12:56 p.m_

_STARR: emergency! Come quick to the bathroom near room 206!_

_PAULI: PLEASE HURRY_

_PAULI: AND BRING DANNY_

 

Danny surreptitiously tucks his vibrating phone back into his hoodie pocket, raising his hand and asking to be excused. Tucker and Manson both give him odd looks, but he is already out the door and speed walking down the hallway to the other side of the building.

 

He nearly collides with Dash in his haste, but he is only shoved forward even faster with a large hand and a "Move it, Fentonio!" as he is practically carried down the halls and to the appointed bathroom.

 

Upon arriving, sobbing can be heard from outside the closed door. Dash doesn't even give Danny any time to brace himself before he is being shoved in and _locked_ in, causing Danny's eyes to widen in alarm at the jock's bold move.

 

"You do know that if a teacher walks by and tries to open the door we're in big trouble, right?"

 

Dash only spares him a narrow-eyed look like it was a stupid question, "So?"

 

Danny sighs in resignation at the turn of events, "You know what? Never mind."

 

"Oh, my god, Danny!" He is suddenly being bowled over by a sobbing blonde mess, snot and salt water already soaking his _previously_ acceptably clean hoodie. He awkwardly pats Starr's back and tries to hold her petit (but still heavy) body mass up.

 

"There you two are!" An angry Paulina yells from around a stall corner which is overflowing with open remedy makeups, "Did you bring Kwan?"

 

"Nah, we both couldn't get out of class at the same time, so it's only me today." Dash scratches the back of his head as Paulina slaps his arm, as if it was _his_ fault the teacher wouldn't let two boys go to the bathroom at once.

 

"Um, someone mind telling me why we're here?" Danny questions from his precarious position leaning painfully on a sink, nearly hysterical Starr clinging to the front of his chest and slowly sliding down to the floor.

 

"I- I- I'm so sorry you guys!" Starr suddenly cries, "I just couldn't stay in that class with Mr - _that teacher -_ any longer. I just couldn't!"

 

"Whoa there, hold on. What did the teacher do to you, Starr?" Dash shoulders his way forward, large and imposing. It is honestly the only way Dashiel Baxter could exist in that meaty form.

 

"That _estúpido_ called from the old roll chart that he somehow dug up from the records," Paulina explains, sparkling claws flexing and shiny pink lips curling, "I don' even know how he got it. _Idiota_ substitute!"

 

Danny doesn't have to know Spanish to understand that Paulina is, essentially, talking crap about the sub-teacher for her and Starr's now abandoned class.

 

"So…" Danny tries to adjust his back so that it wasn't constantly digging into the sink. It doesn't work.

 

Paulina throws her hands up, " _Ay dios mio_ , Danny! It means he called her the wrong name! Her _birth name!_ "

 

Danny's eyes widen in horror. He knew what it was like to be called his birth name. It was like getting his soul ripped out, stepped on, and then left out to be picked up later by the trash collectors.

 

It was like being told you didn't deserve to exist.

 

Danny rubs Starr's shuddering back with more effort, empathy rolling off of him in waves.

 

"But why am I here, specifically?" He asks one more time, just to make sure.

 

"Oh, we just needed someone who was short enough for Starr to hug and fall all over," Dash answers like it's the most normal thing in the world, "Plus we can't get _our_ clothes all gross and snotty. But _you_ , on the other hand, are _already_ gross and snotty, so it won't make a difference on you, yeah?"

 

Danny scowls, _of course. Scapegoat until the end, I suppose._

 

No one hears the footsteps outside the bathroom door until the teacher is already knocking slowly, as if mocking the students all frozen in fear inside.

 

Starr chooses that moment to obnoxiously blow her nose into Danny's left sleeve.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny slumps morosely on the scarcely cushioned seat in the school office, legs swinging and stretching valiantly to try and barely touch the floor.

 

"This bites," Dash mumbles from two seats over, equally as slouched – but with legs fully touching the floor, even stretching out awkwardly due to the low-laying seat. Danny's gut burns with jealousy.

 

"This is _your_ fault," he hisses without thinking, desperately wishing for the green monster to get off of his shoulder, but also for the ability to _think before he speaks._

 

Fortunately, Dash only gets out an eye roll before Principal Ishiyama's office opens with a muted squeak, allowing the single adult to walk out.

 

Danny shrinks down in his seat like the guilty puppy he is, waiting for the rolled up newspaper to hit home.

 

"Dash, Danny; you're both free to go."

 

The boys perk up at the news, disbelief in their hopeful eyes.

 

"But…"

 

Cue two gulps of anxiety.

 

"You're not allowed into the female, non-unisex restroom for any group chat called pow-wows ever again." Principal Ishiyama wiggles her fingers and cocks a hip, "If you simply _must_ have impromptu private conversations as a group, come to the restroom next to the office. It is free to use for all genders."

 

Dash and Danny blink, exchange glances, and then spring up from their chairs with twin apologizes on their lips.

 

"Of course, Principal Ishiyama, never again, ma'am!"

 

"Yes, of course, not again, ma'am!"

 

The principal nods, satisfied, before sashaying back to her office. It has music that sounds suspiciously like screaming rock-n-roll coming from it, but she shuts the door before any conclusions could be drawn.

 

Dash and Danny leave the office and head for home in silence.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 7:47 p.m_

_SAM: Heard you got arrested._

 

Danny curls the flesh around his nose, _I did_ not _get arrested!_

 

_DAN: No I Didnt! ! !_

_SAM: Alright, you didn't, chill out. I was only making a joke._

_DAN: it wasnt very funny_

 

Danny rolls over on his bed to a new resting position, hand brushing up against the caked on mucus on his sleeve. He hasn't changed yet because he doesn't have the energy to get up.

 

_SAM: You just have no sense of humor._

 

Danny rolls his eyes.

 

_DAN: if you must know, i was helping a friend in the girls bathroom and got caught_

_DAN: i didnt get in trouble though, not really_

…

_SAM: That's funny. Did they cry? No wonder you looked like someone had sneezed on your shoulder._

_DAN: it! Wasnt! Funny!_

_SAM: I didn't even make a joke this time, Danny._

 

Danny drags his hand through his gross hair, wincing at the grime and oil that came off on his appendage. He wants to wipe it on his hoodie, but it's dirty enough without his own bodily functions adding to the batter.

 

He decides that he has enough energy to stand in hot water for at least a few minutes. He drops his phone carelessly onto his pillow (accidentally ignoring a text from Tucker) and sheds clothes as he walks, scaring the daylights out of his sister when he appears half-naked in the hallway already crying from exhaustion before he could even make it to the bathroom.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 7:50 p.m_

_TUK: Danny? Did you get sent to the office for something?_

_TUK: And why was Dash with you?_

…

…

…

_TUK: Danny? ? ?_

…

_TUK: danny why is this unknown number bragging to me about texting you "all the time" right now_

_TUK danny how did this person get my phone number_

…

…

_TUK: Ugh. Fine. See you tomorrow._

_Sent at 8:15 p.m_

 


	8. leash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *violence, trauma, panic attacks, menstruation

 

Tucker hasn't shown up at lunch yet today.

 

Danny sits awkwardly on the bench, staring resolutely at the light blue table with his hands shoved between his legs to stop him from picking at his skin or bouncing in his seat. Sam Manson sits in their usual spot diagonally from him, but is devoid of the usual Tucker Foley that should have been sitting on their right and directly in front of Danny. Today, there is only an empty space.

 

Danny checks his phone for the fifth time in thirty minutes out of their hour break.

 

"He's not coming, you know."

 

Danny looks up cautiously into the waiting eyes of Manson, who is eating a banana smoothie, or so Danny's somewhat rational mind assumes. It's yellow for a reason, he just doesn't think he wants to specifically _know_ that reason.

 

"Why do you say that?" He ventures.

 

Manson snorts, leaning forward on the table with her elbows, "Uh, because you two always walk in together?" She flicks her nose ring with an obnoxiously smug expression, "Face it, Danny; you're stuck with me today."

 

Danny fumes at the response. What if he doesn't _want_ to be stuck with Manson today? He thinks that's a pretty good reason, so he tells them so.

 

"What if I don't _want_ to be stuck with you today?" He challenges, eyes roaming the lunch room for either an empty table or familiar faces. He lands on Dash and Kwan, who are nearly unavoidable due to their recently received red sports jackets. They quite literally never take them off, apparently. Paulina, Starr, and a few other unknown people are also at the longest table in the room. Danny always wondered why _they_ specifically _always_ got the longest table, but he wasn't about to question it right now.

 

Manson narrows their eyes and follows his view to the table he's looking at, to which they widen in shock, intricately plucked eyebrows raising, "Danny, don't…"

 

Danny scoffs, "And why not? I talk to them all the time. They're better company than _you_."

 

Manson looks less offended and more freaked out by his comment, however, and she leans forward as if about to grab him and force him not to move, "Danny, seriously. They will mess you up if you try to talk to them now. I don't care what kind of relationship you have with them outside of school, but it doesn't apply here."

 

She says it so gravely that it makes him pause, hands still propped up on the table as if he were about to stand. He meets a very intense purple gaze.

 

Sighing, he stands anyway. An iron clamp comes down onto his arm, nearly tearing him off of his feet in its force.

 

He looks down, ready to yell, or fight, or most likely cry. He might cry immediately, actually. This really hurts. "Lay off, will you? I'm just leaving the lunch room to look for Tucker. Not actually gonna go sit at the table…" He grumbles, shifting his gaze away with a red face. He didn't have the guts.

 

What Manson said was, unfortunately, true. No one from the chat group ever even looked at him during school unless he was 'on call' as he liked to put it, and it was incredibly disheartening. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to sit at a table full of staring gazes and silence for a full hour everyday just because he didn't want to sit alone with a specific person.

 

Even if that specific person was the incorrigible Sam Manson.

 

The hand lets go, and he quickly shuffles out of the lunchroom without acknowledging Manson, who is now staring at her phone intensely.

 

 _Good_ , he thinks bitterly, _now maybe she'll be lonely and guilty. It's probably_ her _fault that Tucker won't come to lunch anymore._

 

Danny sneaks around the sides of the school, checking a few crevices that he and Tucker explored within the past few months in their spare time. He even finds a few new hidey-holes, ones that he would be glad to show to Tucker… as soon as he can _find_ Tucker.

 

A full fifteen minutes later and nothing to show for it, Danny becomes quite sullen. Where in the world is his best friend? No one but the seniors were allowed to leave campus, which meant that any help Danny could've gotten from Jazz is snuffed due to her own car-driving abilities.

 

He slips into an alley sort-of-place between two buildings and a chain link fence near the football field. One last look couldn't hurt…

 

Unfortunately, he is no longer alone.

 

"Hey there."

 

Danny spins around to the mouth of the alley in alarm; a fairly large girl and a person in a neon green hoodie are standing there. They don't necessarily _look_ threatening, but Danny's instincts for the bad and unlucky prickle at his senses as he takes them in visually.

 

He has to play this smart, or else he might not play this kind of game ever again.

 

"Hi. Seen a black kid with a red beret around here anywhere?" He asks with a coy smile, furtively fumbling with his phone in his ridiculously huge cargo pocket at the same time. He has never before felt _so thankful_ for his silly, deep-pocket pants as he does right now, as his tinkering is hidden behind too much fabric to be seen.

 

The green-hoodie person steps closer, nonchalant, but Danny can see the wild look in their partially hidden eyes, "Nope, afraid we haven't. We can help you look though. You seem a little ragged around the edges right now. Isn't that right, sweetheart?" They hold the tall girl's hand almost delicately and bring her forward.

 

She smiles; it's a thin, sickly looking thing that does nothing to put Danny at ease, but he flashes all of his teeth in response anyway, "Sure! That would help me a lot. I've been _so_ busy with schoolwork lately. Isn't school just _such_ a _bust?_ " He has to think fast _and_ type fast at this point, "You see, we're meeting up in the football field in a few minutes. Need to shoot the breeze, as our boring old teachers would put it."

 

Green-hoodie nods as if in understanding. They even say 'I understand', but something about that sentence seems especially wrong to the cornered teen. Danny continues to try and open the group chat without the now suspiciously close couple noticing.

 

He's just about to type out a message when the girl puts a hand on his shoulder softly, "What's his name, Danny?"

 

Danny freezes. Why do they know his name? A few letters of a too-short sentence are tapped out.

 

His phone dies in his pocket with a breathy hiss.

 

_No._

 

"Danny?"

 

Danny looks up at the tall girl – no, _woman_. These two are fully grown adults on a high school campus. The scent of cigarette smoke clouds the air; something he didn't notice when wandering the alleys beforehand. There is a pile of used cigarette butts in the corner, too, right along with a balled up and dirty neon blue hoodie.

 

These people came here often.

 

"If you'd come with us, we can help you find Tucker, you know."

 

The woman's voice is soothing.

 

It's just that… Danny doesn't _do_ soothing. So he smashes a fist right into her neck and runs for it.

 

Arms wrap around his stomach as he's bodily thrown back into the alley by green-hoodie. He lands heavily on his face and side, binder straining tight on his chest and bruised ribs, choking the air out of him. He scrambles about the ground in attempt to stand up again. The blood pouring from his nose doesn't register in his brain.

 

A heavy weight thuds into Danny's exposed back, and he's suddenly spread out on the asphalt with the tall woman on top of him, no longer acting demure. She looks _terrifying_. He can see that some of her teeth are blackened in the middle, others chipped and looking like fangs.

 

He screams as loud as he can, but he can't get enough air and the woman clamps a dirty hand over his mouth.

 

Green-hoodie is dragging something out from the pile of soiled clothing. It looks like rope, or twine, or something and Danny is being kidnapped and he can't _breathe_ -

 

" _Hey!_ "

 

There's a thundering of heavy boots and the jangling of chains and green-hoodie is sprinting around the tall lady with a pocket knife already out and held up in prime stabbing position. Tall-lady also flicks out a knife and digs it painfully into Danny's chest. She grunts in frustration when she keeps getting caught on fabric.

 

" _Danny!_ "

 

Danny had squeezed his eyes shut at some point, and when he opens them it is to tall-lady brandishing a knife and holding it high, wild eyes and thin lips pulled taut with anger.

 

She brings the knife down in one fell swoop, and there's a loud ripping sound as his hoodie and binder are cut clean through.

 

Tall-lady blinks in surprise at the unexpected thick fabric under his shirt before she's being tackled by a screaming dark yellow figure.

 

Danny quickly covers his chest and rolls onto his side. Green-hoodie is bloodied and knocked out several feet away, an equally bloody but still standing Sam Manson towering over him with heat in her eyes.

 

" _Ugh!_ "

 

Manson is swiftly running past Danny with a battle cry, aiding Tucker in his fight with tall-lady. There are a series of loud noises, a shrill scream, and then two sets of feet are coming towards him at a high speed.

 

"Danny, oh god, Danny." Tucker is abruptly kneeling next to Danny, pulling off his yellow sweater and draping it temporarily over Danny's chest. "I need to take off your ripped clothes, okay? Is that okay? I need to move you to get your shirt and… Oh, Danny." Tucker fingers the completely ruined black binder.

 

Danny is too shocked to burst into hysterics at the revelation, so he just nods his head and continues to lay down like a useless rag doll.

 

"Okay, okay… Manson, help me lift him." Manson is _also_ abruptly there, and with their combined efforts Danny is sitting up and leaning heavily on the banged-up Goth's side while Tucker quickly shoves him into the yellow sweater and discards the torn clothing.

 

"Danny, your phone is dead... But I thought that unknown number was you...?" Tucker mumbles something too quiet to hear as Manson hands the phone to inot the waiting technopath hands, "Is this why you didn't call for help?"

 

Danny jerks and trembles, breathing suddenly more than just shallow wisps of air, "Uh… uhn…"

 

"Shh, Danny-"

 

"Ouuuhh no…" Danny moans thin and frail into Manson's thick shoulder, arms being wrapped much too tightly across his chest, "No… No, no, no, why, why, this is bad…"

 

"Hold on, let me just-" Tucker plugs one of his portable phone chargers into Danny's phone. The screen lights up, showing the 'Error: Message not sent' notification. Tucker accidentally taps the phone too hard with his trembling, slippery hands, and the message 'SOS field' sends to a group chat including Kwan, Dash, Paulina, and Starr.

 

Tucker looks confused at the names while Sam only leans over, lightly comments 'oh', then goes back to being Danny's wall to lean on.

 

Danny's phone is suddenly vibrating with an incoming call. Tucker stares at the screen, incredulous, before picking up, "Dash Baxter? This is Tucker Foley. Uh, Danny's friend. Can you bring a teacher or something out to the alley behind the football field? We have a major problem over here."

 

Manson shows a bit of affection by reaching around Danny and rubbing his arm, but it's nothing like being held by his sister or mother or father, and stops just as soon as it starts. Being so close to them smells like waxy lipstick and powder and blood. There's no humming or rocking or warmth encasing him.

 

It's just him and Sam sitting against each other, looking like complete messes.

 

It's therapeutic.

 

"You might want to call the police, too. Uh, maybe bring the teacher and authorities here first before asking questions. Yes, 'seriously.'"

 

Danny tries to concentrate on Sam's deep and deliberate breathing. Were they trying to calm themselves down, too?

 

Danny slowly raises his hand and wipes at the bloody nose he got from being slammed onto the ground. He shivers uncontrollably despite his avidly dissociating state of mind. He doesn't realize that he and Sam had started breathing deeply in sync together.

 

_In, 2... 3... 4... Out, 2... 3... 4... 5..._

 

Tucker stares at them both and says nothing. His face is burnt and raw by the asphalt be must've fallen down on, and his palms look further blackened with dirt and ash.

 

" _Pride and Prejuduce!_ What happened here!?"

 

Sam and Danny don't even open their closed eyes, so Tucker gets up to address the frantic teacher, "Mr. Lancer! Did you call the police?"

 

Mr. Lancer shakes his head dumbly, Dash Baxter skidding to a halt behind him, "No, but I did."

 

Sure enough, there are wailing sirens closing in on the school's location.

 

Sam's eyes suddenly shoot open, and she's up and running out of the alley with her leather jacket covering most of her face and body before the teacher could get a good look at her messed up and bloody state. Mr. Lancer shouts and attempts to give chase, asking 'him' what 'his' name is and where do you think you're going, young man…

 

Dash is joined by Kwan, and they rush over to pick Danny back up from where he was (rudely) dropped. His breathing is once again labored, calming breathing techniques shattered with the abrupt arrival of reality.

 

When Mr. Lancer returns to the alley with the police, every single student claims that they had no idea who their bloody savior was. And Danny's pleading puppy eyes had absolutely no reason to do with their answers. No, really.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny looks at his rarely washed white binder with pit stains in slight disgust. He is kind of starting to smell more than usual because he wears the same binder every day, and can't stop to wash it.

 

If only his black binder wasn't so _rudely_ destroyed a few weeks ago, he wouldn't be having this problem. Whenever his parents or sister tried to talk to him about that day, he would only shift the conversation to complaining about how his binder was torn and gone forever and, ugh, what a pain; I'm _totally_ not traumatized, no way, how could you insinuate that…

 

He's tried that trick he read on the internet where you put the clothes in the freezer overnight to eliminate odor without washing it, but recently his parents had been putting glowing… _things_ in both the freezer and the fridge, making almost all meals at the Fenton home full of danger and ectoplasm.

 

He feels like he would just _die_ if anything happened to his remaining binder, so he can't even risk letting it be contaminated by ecto-samples.

 

 _Ectoplasm is gross_ , Danny thinks as he shoves an iridescently green strawberry into his mouth, _who the heck would want to live with ectoplasmic clothes._

 

…What? Danny has low eating standards; so sue him. He hasn't grown a third arm yet.

 

His phone vibrates from somewhere under his bed covers, so he rolls himself away from his computer and flaps his hands around until he finds it.

 

_Sent at 11:45 p.m_

_SAM: What's up, buttercup._

 

Danny snorts and leans over to squash a wriggling ecto-sample attempting to worm its way off of his desk.

 

_DAN: fighting living ectoplasm off of my food, hbu_

…

_SAM: What? You're joking, right?_

_DAN: nope! theres always 'live' ectoplasm in the fridge. gets all over the food._

_DAN: id hate to see the stuff in my parent's 'ghost lab' though_

_DAN: its probably ten times worse_

…

…

_SAM: holy shit dude no way really_

 

Danny's eyebrows practically fly into the sun with surprise. Did Sam just cuss _and_ make typos in the same finger-breath?

 

_DAN: yes way, why are you so surprised?_

_DAN: my parents are the 'ghost hunters of amity park'_

_DAN: i literally live in fentonworks inventions_

…

…

_SAM: dude can i like_

_SAM: come over some time_

_SAM: And see your awesome ghost lab?_

 

Uh…

 

_DAN: uh…_

_DAN: gee i dunno sam_

_DAN: my parents dont even let tucker down there that often_

_DAN: and youve never come over before so…_

_DAN: well see? i guess?_

…

_SAM: Cool, bro. Thanks._

_Sent at 12:01 a.m_

 

Danny closes his tired, dry eyes and ignores the glowing strawberries in favor of fully laying on his bed instead of just leaning on it from his chair. He leaves the food out in the open, his computer on, and the chair in its dangerous position right next to the bed.

 

 _I guess I'm going to sleep right_ _at this absolute moment_ , he yawns, legs curling in close to draw warmth.

 

A stray ectoplasmic being scoots around on his floor, lost in the maze that is Danny's Dirty Musty Room.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny walks down the chrome steps into the lab, still in his sleeping shorts and thin t-shirt as it is barely 2 p.m and Danny Fenton isn't a quitter when it comes to sleeping as late as possible. He still has on his white binder, of course.

 

Can't leave his room unless he has his binder on, lest he break down into dissociative hysterics without it.

 

Ah, the life of a dysphoric child.

 

Unfortunately, the parents which he doth seek are in the deepest part of the lab, meaning that he would have to 'suit up' to go any further. His is the smallest in the line of hazmat suits, and has a lot less extra fabric that the other three custom suits. Whereas the others had very blocky, boxy shapes, Danny was given a nearly body-con-like suit. He was told it was because he wasn't old enough for a 'real' suit or 'real' lab clearance.

 

Danny grimaces as he slips into his white-black hazmat. It always feels like he's an eel poking his head out of a hole in a rock when he wears this thing.

 

He walks further into the lab, coming across the door that will lead him to the second section. He uses his left eye to input Fenton DNA into the scanner, causing the door to slide open with a hiss and allow him access to the place his parents are currently bent over different mechanisms.

 

"Danny-boy!" His father calls, standing next to an astoundingly large gun of some sort, "Come down to check out all of our new ghost hunting weapons?"

 

Danny pulls an awkward smile, not really wanting to, but knowing it'll make his parents (read: his trigger happy father) happy if he does. He moseys over to his dad, bypassing his focused mom and several other inventions and beakers and things he wouldn't dare touch even if it was with a ten-foot pole.

 

So Danny spends the next few hours being toted about the lab getting shown all of the new weaponry that would be installed onto the Fenton RV within the next week. Thankfully, the giant ray gun his dad had been standing next to when he walked in wasn't going on the RV, and was in fact being taken apart to build other, smaller inventions.

 

Not that Danny approved of these weapons in the first place, but at least they didn't have some kind of _Death Gun_ from _Hell_ with the capabilities of leveling a small city in their basement… at the moment.

 

In a lull, where his dad is simply staring into a gutted hole in the wall (he called it a 'ghost portal in the making', whatever that meant) Danny pulls out the card he'd been saving for _three hours_.

 

"Hey, dad?" A grunt, "Do you think Tucker and… Sam could come over sometime? They want to see- er, _hear_ about your _ghost studies._ "

 

Danny's mother makes a funny noise, finally moving from her position bent over several microscopes, and walks over with her hands on her hips.

 

"And who is this _Sam?_ A boy? A girl?" His mother questions. His father is still staring dumbly into the 'portal.'

 

"Um, both. Neither. I don't know? It depends on the day…" Danny shrugs helplessly, sort of wishing he could just pick one gender and hope his mom would forget his answer by the time Sam actually came over.

 

Maddie's face is hidden behind goggles, but Danny can tell that she is probably narrowing her eyes, looking for any lies. He must come off as clean as a whistle, though, because she smiles and says, "Sure! Jack would love to talk about ghosts with some fresh, new minds. Won't you, Jack?"

 

A grunt of affirmation is earned from Jack.

 

Danny's mother shoos him back upstairs, somehow _sensing_ with her weird _mom senses_ that he had only come down to ask that one question and didn't want to stay any longer.

 

Mission accomplished.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 1:10 p.m_

_KWAN: Danny! Pad! Bathroom by front office!_

 

Danny weaves through the crowds, expertly losing Tucker and Sam with his incredibly short height. It is the time between classes, with everyone rushing about to get to where they need to be within just a few minutes. A perfect scenario to slip away from his taller friends.

 

 _Friends_ , Danny muses deliriously, _I wonder how that happened._

 

After the incredibly violent almost-kidnapping a month before, Sam and Tucker have since stuck to him like glue. They don't even fight in front of him, though they never hang out together outside of school. Sometimes he would go to the mall with Sam to look at an impossibly wide selection of clothes (she was always courteous and never forced him into outfits he said he wasn't comfortable with) and sometimes he would go to the Nasty Burger to chat and goof off with Tucker. But he had yet to go somewhere with Sam _and_ Tucker in the same spot besides school.

 

He didn't know if he should be happy that his friends were making and effort just for him, or concerned that they would blow up and rip each other apart one day in the middle of lunch.

 

Danny tears himself from his mind as he reaches the unisex bathroom by the office, slipping in with a wary glance behind his shoulder.  He closes the bathroom door quietly, finding Kwan immediately.  They appear to be alone today. 

 

 _Probably just a pad run_ , Danny decides as he hunts in his pocket for the wanted plastic casing.

 

"Hey. It's a large with no wings," he says as a greeting and tosses a purple package into Kwan's waiting hands.

 

At that moment, a new person also enters the bathroom. They get a full view of Danny, arm outstretched from tossing the pad, and Kwan, holding the pad.

 

Danny freaks out a little bit.

 

Kwan looks like the coolest cucumber to ever exist.

 

"Hey, Li."

 

"Sup', Kwan. Oh, you're trans?"

 

"Haha, yup!"

 

"Cool, cool." The _mystery_ boy named Li pads over to the mirror with suspiciously bare feet, pulls out mascara and a tube of lipstick, and begins to apply the makeup. "So how was the game Friday? Pull any sweet moves?"

 

"Nah, probably not. 23-30."

 

Li hums _mysteriously_ , and Danny is so incredibly lost it isn't even funny.

 

Kwan moves into a stall, the sound of crinkling plastic coming seconds later.

 

Danny stands awkwardly off to the side, trying his hardest not to look directly at the boy expertly layering on mascara with an exaggerated 'o' face.

 

"So, you trans too?" Li abruptly asks, shooting Danny a glance from his vision in the mirror.

 

"Uh… hhhh…" Danny is freaking out again. Who just _asks_ that kind of thing?

 

 _Mysterious_ makeup boys, that's who.

 

Li frowns thoughtfully, "It's okay, little man. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Sorry for stepping out like that."

 

Kwan makes a sound of distress, and the unknown Asian boy halts his barely-there conversation with Danny to walk over to the stall to knock, "You okay in there?"

 

"Yeah, I've just got this really ugly chest pimple that keeps showing. I have a v-neck on, and my binder rides low."

 

Li makes a sound of understanding, "I have some stick concealer in my bag you can use."

 

Kwan steps out of the stall with no shirt on, dark red binder being displayed in full view of anyone who could walk in at any moment _oh my god_ -

 

"Sure!" The football player says brightly and starts to remove his binder.

 

Danny must have let out some kind of shrieking noise because the two boys turn to him with twin concerned looks on their faces.

 

Kwan's binder is completely off.

 

"Danny? You okay?"

 

"Yeah, what's wrong, little man? You never seen a binder or something?"

 

Danny's hand automatically flies to clutch at his chest, where his own white binder lays hidden under a jacket-hoodie combo. His breath is coming a little fast and he can't say anything.

 

"No, Danny wears a binder, I'm pretty sure," Kwan hums, stepping slowly forward and towering over him, "What's wrong?"

 

Danny automatically stares at Kwan's previously bound chest in trepidation.

 

How does Kwan do it? How can he just stand around with his binder off in front of Danny, a person who has never seen him with his binder off before?

 

"Danny, little guy, you gotta tell us what's wrong…" Li hovers his hand uncertainly over Danny's shoulder, as if he was just waiting to console _a stranger_ for some reason or another, but wouldn't touch without permission first.

 

"How do you do that?" Danny finally chokes out, "Doesn't it hurt? Don't you feel disgusting? I've never seen you like this before; aren't you scared of… of…"

 

"Of my body? No, Danny." Kwan nearly has to bend all the way in half to look the short teen in the eye, so he does something _really weird_ that most likely changes their tentative relationship forever and picks Danny up, placing him on the nearest sink, "I've _never_ been scared of my body."

 

Well; it looks like they were having _this_ conversation in the bathroom today, then.

 

"Not all people who transition do it because they hate their bodies. Some of us are just… trans," Kwan explains, a soft smile and shrug accompanying his advice.

 

Danny can barely comprehend what that would be like.

 

No gender dysphoria. No body hate. No destructive binding habits built of desperation; what if he had just _asked_ to be ordered a binder and _waited_? What if _not_ _binding_ didn't cause him intense amounts of discomfort, making him hide in his room for days? What if coming out to his family was less of a breakdown full of fear and loathing and more of a discussion of his new future?

 

Jealousy floods him in intense waves. And with any overwhelming emotion, it causes Danny to start crying. Because depression.

 

Li comes up beside him with some incredibly soft tissues that certainly didn't belong to the school, meaning he was using his own tissues to clean up the mess that is Danny Fenton. A stranger.

 

He feels himself fall a little bit in love with Li in that moment.

 

"That's not _fair_ ," he whispers in despair. Kwan hugs him, which is now possible because Danny is on top of a waist-height sink.

 

"I know, Danny," murmurs Kwan, who is doing that amazing thing that extremely empathetic people do where they rub Danny's back and rock him slowly, "I know."

 

By the time the trio left the bathroom, it was time to go home. The secretary in the office only gazed at them silently with a twinkle of knowing in their eyes.

 

Danny went home with a new number in his phone and a new hole in his heart.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 1:15 p.m_

_TUK: Where the hell did you go?_

_TUK: You can't just disappear like that!_

_TUK: I'll sic Sam on you if you don't respond._

…

…

…

_SAM: Hey knucklehead, saw you sneak off, don't get in any trouble._

_SAM: But if you do I'm right here._

_SAM: You can sic me on your enemies._

_SAM: I'll keep Tucker from blowing a gasket or something._

…

…

…

_Sent at 1:30 p.m_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I got the message across that a trans person isn't required to experience body dysphoria to be trans - they can just _be trans._
> 
> P.S. Minors watch out for suspicious adults on campus. If it feels like bad news, treat it like bad news, and get a teacher. Don't be like Sam.


	9. have a cow. hell, have them all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *references to bullying, body dysphoria, disordered eating habits, tense situations

 

"You're asking me how I can eat ectoplasmic-tainted food all the time and not get sick? Well, that's kind of an old story, and it isn't very funny, but Tucker laughed when I told him, so I guess you might like it, too.

 

"No, Sam - that was not a joke at your expense. I'm just saying that your humor is a little… You know what? Never mind. Be quiet, Tucker, you aren't helping me.

 

"It was one morning during the summer between my fourth and fifth grade. The day before, some mean girl stuck gum in my hair at the park, so I had to spend that night getting it all cut out by my mom with kitchen scissors. I wasn't very happy the next day, so I snuck into the lab to hide out. I knew Jazz was going to try and, like, comfort me or something, but honestly all I wanted to do was take a brick to the park girl's face.

 

"Anyway, I'm hiding under a table when my parents come down and start messing with stuff. I wasn't paying very much attention because they're _always_ messing with stuff in the lab, but then I see a bunch of glowing green goop slide off one of the tables and onto the floor. It starts moving around like its alive, and I start realizing that being on the floor with that thing wasn't a very good idea at that moment.

 

"When I'm coming out of hiding, though, I see that there's tons of that green stuff getting onto the floor. I guess my parents don't notice, because they just move on to the second level of the lab no problem. I think they were trying to re-create an older experiment and were really excited.

 

"There's this army of ecto-samples schlepping around and I'm too short to climb on anything and my parents had already shut the first level lab door so that the kids that they _thought_ were safely upstairs wouldn't bother them, but it turns out that Jazz had come down the stairs, too, before they had closed the door, and was looking for me.

 

"We're both freaking out, because what the hell? The ecto-samples in the fridge had never moved around _this_ much. Jazz grabs some sort of baseball bat-like weapon with a stupid name and I just kind of hold on to the table legs while she swats at the goo. It doesn't like that, and starts shooting goo blobs at her. She's dodging pretty okay, but a lot of it still gets on her skin, and that's not okay, because you always have to shower after getting contaminated for some reason. I still don't know any _actual_ side-affects, and my parents are all clammy on that subject.

 

"Our parents come back out from the second level of the lab into the first to see the absolute bull-honkey that had occurred while that weren't looking, and they whip out a bunch of guns that were built into their suits or something. I dunno, I just know that the one on my dad's butt was a really weird place to put a gun.

 

"One of the ectoplasmic blobs decides at that point to sneak up on me, and I scream really loud because I'm, like, nine or something. That was a mistake. It shoots a blob right into my mouth and I swallow it because I'm an idiot.

 

"Jazz and me are shoved into the emergency showering stations in the second level, but I never tell my parents that I actually swallowed the ectoplasm, so they hopefully still don't know. They'd probably try to convince me that cutting me open and studying my stomach is a good idea, which _I do not want._

 

"Uh, anyway, that's why everyone in my house can eat weird, glowing food. Apparently, my parents have had heavy exposure since their, like, college years or something, so they've been able to eat ectoplasm-tainted stuff for a long time. I don't think they've ever swallowed pure ectoplasm like I have, though, because no one else eats tainted food as often as I can without getting some kind of stomach ache. My parents also do these weird experiments once a month where they take samples of our face skin to make sure we don't get something called 'ecto-acne.' It's fatal I guess."

 

Danny scratches his chin with one hand, glowing green Tupperware of pasta open and untouched in front of him on the lunchroom table, "So, yeah," he finishes his story lamely.

 

Sam is gaping at him and Tucker is shaking with silent laughter, whether at hearing the story for a second time or at Sam's reaction.

 

"How are you not, like, _dead_ or something?" Sam places a hand on her chest and throws her head back as if in exhaustion. Which is pretty believable; Danny's been told by Tucker than being his friend is quite a hefty full-time job.

 

Apparently he has no self-preservation skills – who knew? Just last week an unhappy jock who was failing a test or something picked him up while he was walking back from the bathroom and dropped him straight into a dumpster. He just stayed in there being quiet and still until the janitor came by to throw away the trash. His excuse was that he hit his head and passed out, but in reality he was just really tired and spent the time napping with no regards to his safety. He smelled like fish and lunchables for three days.

 

"Uh, I dunno. Everyone in my house has some kind of extremely faint ecto-signature, but mine is the strongest, especially after I eat my mom's cooking." Danny turns around and dumps the glowing pasta into the trashcan behind him, causing both Sam and Tucker to frown in disapproval at his lack of nutrition for the day. They both know that Danny eats as much as a mouse unless you practically force feed him.

 

"Danny, do you want some of my food?"

 

"How about you take one of my sandwiches?"

 

Sam and Tucker look at each other in shock. Danny just starts laughing until he can't breathe, and has to be dragged gasping out of the lunch room to their next class.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Having a physical body just… isn't working out for Danny.

 

He demands a refund.

 

Get _in_ to the tub. Wash your body with soap and water. Get _out_ of the tub.

 

It's an incredibly simple procedure. And yet Danny… can't do it. Not right now.

 

He groans and caves his body in some more, arms for once not immediately wrapping around his chest to flatten unbound breasts.

 

He runs his hands through his frightfully oily and glowing green hair. The ecto-sample that had been sitting in the fridge for an entire week had come to life that morning and tried to encase Danny's head in a surprise bid for freedom. The glow had yet to come out from his dark roots, so he has to bite the bullet and get in the tub.

 

…Get in the tub.

 

…

 

_Get! In! The! Tub!_

 

A knock sounds on the bathroom door, scaring poor Danny into a minor panic attack. "Danny, honey, are these dirty clothes needing to be washed out here?"

 

"Yeah, mom, thanks," he responds without thinking, still staring at the tub.

 

After a few indecisive minutes of glaring, he eventually figures out some sort of cleaning routine. It quickly turns from a bath into a shower; Danny isn't too keen on being able to stare at his naked body under clear water for too long, so he drains the tub and turns on the spray instead. He forgoes messing with shampoo or conditioner in favor of just scrubbing the leftover suds from the body soap on his hair. It usually makes his head look like a bird's nest that sticks straight up in the front, but since when did Danny care that much are his daily hair style?

 

Never, that's when. Even when his hair was as long as his torso, he would so infrequently brush it that permanent knots would take root in his bottom layers. It was always a 'nice' surprise for his frustrated mother or sister to find when they finally trapped him with a hair brush and a lot of free time to get the job done and the locks untangled.

 

Danny snorts at the memory and thanks his luck for being a tough-headed kid who could take some rough hair brushing. Jazz was the opposite, and would be heard crying softly whenever the brush got stuck too harshly on a single tangle.

 

In a nutshell; Maddie keeps her hair short because her genetic hair is A Nightmare to deal with. And she unfortunately passed it on to her two children.

 

Danny gets out of the tub and tightly wraps a towel around himself. As he steps into the hall, he notices that his clothes are gone. Didn't his mother come pick them up to be washed or something?

 

Shrugging, he walks into his room and shuts the door, picking out some clothes from the 'questionable to wear' pile still littering the end of his bed. Nowadays, he mostly just pushes his once-folded clothes piles either onto the floor or just at a further point on his bed and sleeps curled up.

 

Before he puts on his kind-of-smelly shirt, though, he needs to find his binder. But no matter how many times he spins his gaze around his room, he can't find the ugly yellow-white thing. He starts getting desperate and knocks piles of clothes off of his bed, kicking objects around on his floor, and opening random drawers in desperation.

 

Then he remembers; he had carelessly dropped his binder in with his dirty clothing left outside the bathroom door. His mother was probably washing it as he freaked out in his bedroom.

 

He stops opening a drawer midway in distress, only to do a double take. There in the drawer sat his once-used roll of ace bandage, innocent as it could pretend to be. Next to it is a few used packages of clear tape, which he ignores. There is no way in hell he is going to bind with tape ever again.

 

He picks up the roll of bandages with one hand, holding it at eye-level.

 

 _Well_ , he tiredly contemplates the offending item, _better get wrapping._

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"So… the reason that Mr. Lancer never knew it was you was because you 'looked like a boy' that day?" Danny questions with a furrowed brow, fingers fiddling with the cheap wooden chopsticks in his hand.

 

Sam nods from across the sticky mall food court table, "Yeah; it really sucks because now I can't wear that co-ord again for at least a few months. Can't risk being recognized by Lancer."

 

Danny ignores the fact that he has no idea what a 'co-ord' is. "Well, what was so bad about being in the alley with us when the police arrived? All they did was ask us questions then send us home…" He sniffs a bit of wet snot up from dripping out of his nose and sucks the remaining lo-mein noodles into his mouth.

 

"The last time I got into fights at school, I was kicked out of the entire school district," they explain while scooping up the last bit of rice, "It's why my parents moved me out here to Amity Park. Too far away from the rich, preppy scene to 'cause a disturbance' again," they scoff.

 

Danny, once again, ignores the plural _fights_ , even though he kind of wants to scream and toss his food at Sam's head. "Wait, so, you're rich?"

 

Sam pulls a fast one and ignores ( _wow that's so rude_ , Danny thinks hypocritically) his question by getting up and throwing away her empty takeout container, "Come on, my grandma is blowing up my phone with cat pictures already."

 

Danny is confused. "What does that have to do with anything?" He follows their lead anyway, heading towards the nearest exit.

 

"It means that my grandma is getting bored and probably terrorizing my parents as we speak. I need to get home and keep her busy until she gets tired and goes to sleep." Sam adjusts her new snakebite facial piercings and adopts a more feminine walk, shoulders relaxed and legs barely moving far apart from each other in order to take up less room.

 

Danny is fascinated with how Sam seems to 'switch' between genders whenever they want to. Recently, during school hours, they would dress strictly feminine, still paranoid over being recognized as The Alley Vigilante from a month before. However, outside of school, they would have free reign of all kinds of clothing types.

 

Having come straight to the mall from school, Sam is still wearing a black and green grid-printed skirt paired with a mesh crop top. It's see-through, and shows off her neon alien head bra. Because apparently their school had no dress code what-so-ever.

 

Standing next to Sam always makes Danny feel like a frog standing next to a komodo dragon. A _really ugly_ frog next to a _really cool_ komodo dragon.

 

The two unlikely friends cross the street together while holding hands. It was a system implemented by Tucker one day in middle school ("Gotta keep my best bro safe," he said with an odd smile, grabbed Danny's hand, and lead him to the other side of the road safely) and had been picked up by Sam when Danny habitually grabbed her hand one day. Sam said nothing, and from then on grabbed Danny's hand to lead him in crowded places as well.

 

Danny once found it annoying - now he just finds it charming. But also stressful in a way he has yet to fully identify. It can't be all Sam's fault, because he gets the same squirmy feeling in his stomach when Tucker does it, too.

 

He's sort of tempted to go grab Kwan or Li's hand the next time they're walking to the bathroom to test and see if maybe it's just _a thing_ that he should expect to happen for the rest of his life. Kwan would probably be wary and only do it in an empty hallway, but Danny bets that Li would be all for it. The wriggling worm in his stomach increases its movements tenfold at the thought.

 

Danny pretends to not think about Dash, Paulina, or Starr. They'd all rather use him as a portable tissue than hold his hand, or hell, even look him in the face when around other people.

 

They reach the crossroads where Sam goes in one direction and Danny goes in another. His palms erupt in a nervous sweat as he slips out of Sam's lingering handhold.

 

"Hey, remember when you said you wanted to come over and look at my 'ghost lab?' My parents said yes, but only if Tucker is there too. Oh, and you won't get to explore, not really. It will probably just be us in three chairs while my dad talks for a few hours straight. And don't worry about getting attacked by goo or accidentally swallowing it like I did – I'm pretty sure my parents clean the fridge out before people come over. I mean, probably. Most of the time."

 

Danny gets everything out in a rush, thoroughly unsure about the prospect of having Sam in his home at the same time as Tucker and his ghost-crazy family. Not to mention his nosy sister, but she had been quite busy with her junior year so far, and no incidents similar to the one on the first day had happened again.

 

Fortunately, Sam lights up like a Christmas tree. She is obviously excited to simply be in a 'ghost lab.' "Sure! That sounds great. See you soon, Danny." And with that she's swaggering down the street, masculine stride causing her short skirt to hike up to a dangerous level.

 

Danny averts his eyes from the exposed legs with a twist of his lips and heads home.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny watches Tucker shove almost an entire third of a giant Nasty Burger into his mouth with fascinated disgust. It is the evening after he had walked home with Sam and told her that the day she could see his parent's 'ghost lab' was upcoming.

 

Unfortunately, with all of his misplaced excitement, he forgot to tell Tucker about this, despite the red-beret wearing teen being the needed party member to trigger the event into happening.

 

So here he was, buttering up his best friend with an order of three meaty burgers and a giant shake. Danny himself only ordered a small fry basket and a juice, but what can he say? He's watching his figure. And by that he means he can see his ribs and doesn't care at all.

 

"Hey, Tucker?"

 

Tucker makes a noise. Danny takes that as a go ahead.

 

"Do you want to come over this weekend?"

 

The gorging teen swallows his mouthful of food and looks at Danny questioningly, "Why? We don't have any big assignments to do. Do you want to play a game or something?"

 

Danny twiddles his fingers. Tucker narrows his eyes in understanding. "Danny. _Danny_. _Dan_ -ny…"

 

"Uuughh…" Danny groans, trying not to look at his friend's face. It is a losing battle.

 

"So, you just bought me food so that you could ask me a favor, huh? I see how it is," Tucker mockingly crosses his arms and turns his head away, "See if I say 'yes' to anything you have to say now."

 

"Tuk!" Danny whines, throwing a fry in his disagreeing friend's direction, "Come on, you haven't even heard what it is yet!"

 

"Hmm, nope. Not unless you pay me back!" Tucker turns back around and rests his arms on the table, a conspiring expression on his previously teasing face, "And you've gotta pay me back good. So, spill. What d'you want? A pony? A new cellphone?" He gets a sly look, "A date with _Li?_ "

 

Danny gapes in shock, "What? No! I do not want to date Li!" He bunkers down in his seat and feels a bit hot on his face, "You're crazy. He's just a friend of Kwan's. He probably doesn't even like me that much."

 

"Aw, Danny, I'm wounded. You don't think of me as a friend?"

 

Danny chokes. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

 

Li swings around from his seat in the booth directly behind Danny's, long lightened brown hair swinging from its loose braid. " _An-yeong_ , you two."

 

Tucker blinks in surprise and confusion, "Uh, hi?"

 

" _Néih hóu!_ " Calls Kwan from the booth in front of Li, "We're saying hello and Korean and Cantonese, you know."

 

Danny belatedly realizes in his contained meltdown that the two are sitting at a table with only drinks, many papers, and a pair of language dictionaries opened in the middle.

 

Li squishes himself in next to Danny as Kwan steals the seat next to Tucker, "Kwan's never been to China and I've never been to Korea. The school doesn't offer anything but Spanish, German, and French for languages, and we want to possibly visit our origins someday, so we thought, hey? Why not learn our family's language in our free time?"

 

"That's very admirable of you." Danny is desperate for a conversation change, and hopes that no one brings up Tucker's rabble-rousing comment.

 

Unfortunately, Li constantly exists in a zany state, and Kwan is his partner in crime, so the topic is brought up painfully and immediately.

 

"So, little man," Li slides an arm around Danny's shoulders. Something in Danny's head explodes. "I heard from a certain _Foley_ that a certain _Fenton_ doesn't think that I'm in prime _dating_ position?" Li flicks a few crumbs off of the table and bats his mascara-heavy eyes.

 

Danny tries to melt from the seat to the floor.

 

"That's so totally wrong, though. Li is always _so_ dateable," Kwan nods seriously, "So very, very, dateable."

 

"Wait, so you two have dated before?" Tucker questions and covertly tries to continue to eat his food without looking like a starving monster.

 

Li grins, all sly looks and lanky limbs, while Kwan mirrors his position. They wink in unison.

 

"Oh, my god," Danny chokes out, halfway to the floor. Li rubs a hand caringly through his oily mess of hair. Danny reminisces of all the times that the three meet up in the unisex bathroom during school, Kwan in the stall with a pad while Li and Danny have somewhat meaningful conversations in a close physical space.

 

Now that he thinks about it ( _hysteria_ , his mind offers) Kwan seems to forget to bring pads at increasing intervals these days. In fact, he asks for a pad way more often than just once or twice every month. And, somehow, Li is always there with Kwan when Danny arrives, but never appears to have any pads to bring for Kwan himself, which Danny thinks as kind of inconsiderate now that Li knows Kwan is transgender.

 

Danny's mind spins around and around, further rattled by how touchy-feely Li always is.  He also can't stand those dark, searching eyes when they stare at him with unidentifiable emotions...

 

_Okay, this is too much._

 

Danny swiftly collapses to the floor, ignoring the noises of surprise from Kwan and Tucker and the suspicious laughter from Li. He crawls on a sticky floor with his hands and knees (Li is wearing shoes today.  They are expensive looking high heels with flower patterns up the sides) until he makes it past the table and pops up onto his feet, ready to make a run for it.

 

He feels a hand nab his shoulder, lips smooch his forehead, and then Danny's practically sent running out the Nasty Burger door, chased away by his overwhelming _feelings_ , without so much of a 'goodbye' or a 'good _luck_ ' to his left behind friend.

 

Tucker blinks in astonishment at the laughing freshman and sophomore before bodily shoving Kwan out of the seat, a promise of retribution in his eyes as he stares down at the amused looking Li.

 

"I will _destroy you_ if you hurt Danny or make him do something he doesn't wanna do," he says as seriously as he can while scooping up his remaining burgers and hightailing it out of the establishment. He sort of regrets not finally facing the music and trying to invite Sam today – she would've scared any possible enemies off with only a glare and a few words.

 

Despite Tucker's unease at having the purple Goth around, he has to admit that she _is_ a great guard dog for Danny. Which is the only reason. He _totally_ doesn't want to be her friend. Or text her late at night to have conversations. Or watch horror movies with her and Danny on his living room couch, pretend to be scared, and clutch at both of their arms. Or even go to the mall with her like she does with Danny, and be a doll for her to dress up in clothing his family would never let him own.

 

Nope. No friend-lust over here. Just pure resentment.

 

Tucker heads home, finger hovering indecisively over the contact labeled SAM.  The exact same number that used to be listed UNKNOWN when it texted him of Danny's disappearance during lunch, leading to his subsequent rescue mission.  He never told Danny that he knew Sam's number because he had retrieved the information by snooping in his unsuspecting friend's phone one day.  Imagine Tucker's shock at finding the number matched the true Alley Vigilante's contact information...

 

 _A guard dog_ , Tucker shakes his head, _just think of her as a guard dog..._

 

It was bot effective in clearing his head.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny waves off Jazz as she pokes her head in to ask him if he wants to eat dinner. She frowns, as she is prone to doing around Danny at any given point in their life together as siblings, and closes his door again. His phone vibrates from somewhere under his clothes pile on the bed, so he shoves most of the pyramid of _gross_ off to find it.

 

_Sent at 7:45 p.m_

_TUK: Heyy Danny, you okay?_

_TUK: Kwan and Li seemed pretty over-whelming for you._

…

_TUK: Do you want me to sic Sam on them? I'm sure she'd be happy to oblige._

…

…

_DAN: nah_

_DAN: but that reminds me_

_DAN: do you want to come over this weekend?_

_TUK: yeah sure, I was only teasing when I said you had to 'pay me back'_

_TUK: because I have no idea what you even wanted in the first place._

…

_DAN: uh well_

_DAN: actually a while ago sam asked if they could come over and see my lab_

_DAN: and i said yes? ?_

_DAN: but my parents only said i could if you came over too_

…

…

_DAN: so…_

…

…

…

_DAN: tuk?_

…

_TUK: Yea sure I'll come over no problem danny boy spaceman star child_

_DAN: whoa are you okay_

_TUK: absolutely_

…

_DAN: i know how you feel about her_

_DAN: so im sorry if you dont want to be around her for long_

_DAN: but she looked soo excited and really wanted to see the lab and maybe talk to my dad_

_DAN: so i just couldnt say no_

…

_TUK: dude it's fine dont worry about it_

_TUK: we'll probably just sit in chairs and listen to your dad talk for hours on end, she'll get bored, you can say 'I told you so', and then we'll all go watch a movie or something_

_TUK: sound good?_

…

_DAN: yeah that sounds amazing!_

_DAN: thanks tuk : )_

_TUK: Haha, no prob bob._

_Sent at 8:12 p.m_

 

Danny curls up excitedly on his bed, giddy restlessness plaguing him to his very core. Tucker wants to hang out with Sam!

 

 _This is like some kind of major breakthrough_ , he thinks fervently, _maybe he wants to talk to her on the phone or something!_ His fingers fly as he shoots a text off to Sam, hope blooming in his chest.

 

He ignores the cooling plate of food Jazz brought in at some point. He's not _that_ happy.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Somewhere across town, Tucker taps the screen of his phone uncertainly. He eventually gives up, bravery never having existed for this sort of task, and sets his phone down on his computer desk with a sigh.

 

It pings with a message.

 

_Sent at 8:15 p.m_

_SAM: Hey, Tucker. This is Manson. Danny sent me your phone number._

 

Tucker's heart beats wildly.

 

He has had friends other than Danny, sure, but they were mostly online confidants that he would only spend time with in robotics conventions or during a technological co-opt project. None of them had ever been Danny's friends, and especially none of them had ever been on the level that is the near infallible Sam Manson.

 

_TUK: Hi._

 

 _Lame_ , his mind crows. He tells it to shut its dirty pie hole.

 

_SAM: Lame._

 

Wow.

 

_TUK: Jerk. Why did you even text me if you're just going to insult me?_

_SAM: Because Danny asked me to._

_TUK: And, what, you just do everything Danny asks you to?_

_TUK: He just bats those baby blues and you fall all over yourself, huh?_

 

Tucker knows he's being mean, that he really doesn't have anything to complain about. Sam has helped Tucker keep Danny out of trouble numerous times.

 

Besides, how can he say that Sam can't say no to Danny when Tucker himself can't say no to his tiny friend either?

 

_SAM: You do the exact same thing, wise guy. Don't act like you don't._

 

Shoot. He's been found out before he can even hide.

 

_TUK: Whatever._

 

So eloquent, Foley.

 

_SAM: So this means you're coming over to Danny's house on Saturday, right? Since you can't say no to those 'baby blues' either._

_TUK: Yes. I am._

 

Tucker feels like he's going to severely regret this next message, but he's already on the ship of no return. Why not just say 'screw it' and go the whole nine yards?

 

_TUK: And we're going to a movie afterwards._

_TUK: All three of us._

_TUK: And me and you and Danny are all going to be the best of friends._

_TUK: Forever._

_TUK: Because neither one of us can say no to him._

_TUK: And he doesn't deserve having two best friends that fight each other all the time._

…

…

…

 

Radio silence.

 


	10. breathe (you cant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *horror, mild gore and body horror, hallucinations, dissociation

 

Danny Fenton is _absolutely terrified_ of ghosts.

 

He once went to a big slumber party in third grade with a bunch of girls from his class. Everything went fine until Albina, the oldest girl of the group, had devilishly pulled out an Ouija board and woke everyone up at midnight to play. Danny had run screaming from the house, got lost, and was found huddled under a bench in a park almost all of the way on the other side of town.

 

He used to crawl into his sister's bed (not his parents, the reason being they were unreliable in their sleeping patterns and could never be trusted to actually _be in bed_ when he wanted them) at the slightest noise in the darkness. His ten different nightlights were all broken on some occasion of panic, in which he would grip the only glowing thing in his room tight and lob it at the nearest shadow.

 

His parents could be understanding of his fear – they had their moments of love and nurturing where they would speak soothing words and offer their warm, solid bodies as a shield from the possible ghostly world. But, inevitably, their work which had always powered their life would come forth and leave Danny in the dust, choking on fear of the unknown. And ectoplasm.

 

The fact of the matter is that he blames his upbringing for his fear. If his parents hadn't been 'ghost hunters', hadn't had a 'ghost lab', and didn't spend every day with ecto-samples in the fridge waiting to be consumed, Danny was sure that his fear would never have taken hold.

 

…But he won't ever say anything to them, because it might break their hearts to hear that from their son.

 

 _Besides_ , Danny concludes while walking towards the door to answer the knocking, _going to sleep and forgetting all of my bad feelings and experiences is a specialty of mine._

 

When Danny opens the door already in his white/black hazmat suit, it is to Tucker and Sam standing companionably close together. He stares at them, and they stare back.

 

This is weird.

 

"Hi." _Better start this off casual.  
_

 

"'Sup, ghost nerd," Sam grins and slaps Tucker on the shoulder for some reason. It's not like Danny knows why – he's still flummoxed by their same-time arrival and the lack of screaming, fire, and brimstone.

 

As he closes the door and his two friends stand in the kitchen, Sam looking around in interest, Tucker startles and stares at Danny's chest, "Uh, Danny? Did you forget your binder or something?"

 

Danny swallows hard as Sam looks at his chest as well, "Uh… Haha, yeah. It's in the wash." He's sweating. He hopes they don't notice. "But it's just you guys, right? I'll be fine." Probably.

 

Sam and Tucker look very unconvinced, but that's too bad, because Danny is already moving towards the stairs that lead down to the lab.

 

 _If I can get them to think that I'm super comfortable with_ both _of them_ , Danny thinks nervously, _then maybe they'll be nicer to each other while they're here._

 

And so, even if Danny had his white binder to wear, he wouldn't have, because this plan is obviously _genius._

 

"So, when we get down there, I'll have to input some Fenton DNA and a password to open the first door," he explains as they all follow him down the stairs, "After that, there are two spare hazmat suits that are by the entrance that both of you will need to put on. They look like mine, only, uh, really really big."

 

Danny can tell that Sam isn't happy about the news, but Tucker has done with once before when he came over the first time ("Don't tell your parents, by the way, or they'll probably never let you come over again," Danny whispers to his friend. Tucker nods in confusion, but he understands later when Danny eats an entire can of glowing tuna in front of him.) so Danny isn't too worried about anyone stomping out in dramatics.

 

What he _is_ worried about, however, was how absolutely _manic_ his parents had been acting all week. No one was allowed down in the lab except them, there were constant drilling and electrical discharge noises coming from downstairs, and the night before his mother and father had danced the waltz in formal clothing in the living room for almost _three hours_! Jazz had just laid her hand on Danny's arm with a look in her eye and led him upstairs to bed. Which meant that he never figured out why his parents were so excited for Sam and Tucker to come over today.

 

He inputs his DNA into the scanner using his left eye, and the door surprisingly slides open without the need of a password. His parents must be _really_ excited then to not set up the second security measure. Shrugging, he walks his two friends over to the hazmat suit rack. Every single custom suit is gone, but two recently store-ordered suits are balled up in a corner.

 

He helps instruct the two newbies on how to properly suit up before walking slowly through a de-contamination device. Sam's eyes are wide and roving over every piece of the lab, and Tucker looks properly impressed at the upgrades as well. After all, he hasn't been down here since fifth grade.

 

In the first level of the lab stands his two grinning parents and a slightly bored looking Jazz. There are a couple of folding chairs lined up in front of a small array of papers, one of them a poster on the wall. Danny can't get a good look at it, but he hopes it's more about ghosts than ghost weapons. Or maybe Sam will be more interested in the weapons than the ghosts?

 

The trio sit down in front of the presentation, one with unsure feelings and the other two in slight excitement.

 

Danny sighs, _if only I could warn them about how boring these things usually are._

 

"So, Danny's friends!" Jack slaps his hands together, causing a small wave of air to ruffle the papers, "How are you all feeling today? Hope you're up for a very long trip through the world of ghosts!"

 

Maddie stares at Sam with a sharp, predatory smile on her face. It's making Danny uneasy and nervous as hell, but Sam takes it like the phlegmatic being they occasionally are, and does nothing but pay full attention to the monologuing Jack.

 

Several hours later, no one is sitting up straight in fascinated attention anymore. Danny's mom had wandered off to the second level of the lab some time ago, and Jazz was sticking her fingers into a captured ecto-sample and drawing pictures all over the forgotten papers. Tucker was doing his usual death rattle when he wasn't allowed to use technology for longer than an hour. Sam looks like a delinquent stuck in a baggy ecto-suit, which is hilarious on a dangerous level, because she _is_ a delinquent stuck in a baggy ecto-suit.

 

His dad looks exactly like he did when he began, which is _way_ too excited and constantly distracted by different trails of though.

 

Typical dad.

 

"This is called _overshadowing_ , when a ghost forces themselves into a living being's body in order to influence their mind and movement.  Have I ever seen it done?  No.  But when I lived on the farm with my ma and pa, we had something very similar called war propaganda..."

 

Maddie suddenly enters the first level of the lab again, causing everyone to perk up with high hopes for a diversion. She nods to her husband before going back through the door. She leaves it wide open, which is new, and not only because they'd just spent the past two hours sitting in one spot listening to one person talk and talk and _talk…_

 

"Well, kids, looks like I have to stop it here. But, boy do we have a surprise for you all today!" Jack snaps his gloved fingers ineffectually and practically picks Jazz up from her gooey position by the table, "Come on, Jazzy-pants! You're gonna love this thing!" He hurries through the door.

 

Confused and once more excited, the trio of friends follow Danny's father into the second level without needing clearance or de-contamination first. Inside is a series of tables and shelves all in some stare of disarray. Pointing towards the center of the room is an incredibly large hole in the wall surrounded by painted caution lines and vials of ectoplasmic substance nailed in place securely.  The inside of the hole pulsates with electricity, thick wires looking like pythons laid all across the floor both inside and out, attaching it to odds and ends around the lab.

 

" _This_ is the Fenton Ghost Portal!" Maddie calls from her position beside a lever on the wall, "It's a portal that will lead to another dimension that we have seen only once before in the 80's. The Ghost Zone!" She grins, manic and unrestrained, and suddenly Danny understands why his parents were so happy the night before.

 

"You are about to bear witness to history in the making.  New study of the ectoplasmic manifestations of lingering human consciousness that reside within this unexplored world will be discovered.  A whole new world of energy consumption shall be made with these ecto-converters.  Something one considered impossible will now be possible!"

 

They had completed a life-long project that was once only spoken about through wistful conversations at the dinner table.  Barely hinted days of college experimentation leaving their children wondering what kind of messed up school would allow such ludicrous studies.

 

Danny breathes in and chokes down an overwhelming sense of panic. He pretends everything is alright as he, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker all stand quite a ways away behind a caution line.

 

Sam and Tucker look ecstatic while Jazz just looks contemplative and serious. Danny looks like a mess, as per usual, so no one pays that particular detail any attention.

 

He isn't even remotely prepared when his mother and father both place one hand on the lever and pull it down.

 

A fizzle.

 

…

 

Nothing happens.

 

Everyone else lets out a disappointed breathe while Danny finally lets one in. Maddie and Jack look close to crying. They failed  to re-create their once almost-perfect Ghost Portal, and it shows on their faces like a light in the dark.

 

"So much for that hype," says Sam without remorse. Tucker elbows her in the side while Jazz flits about nervously, coming close to her parents with vigilance.

 

"Mom? Dad? Are you okay?" Jazz asks, slowly stepping over the caution line but avoiding the still sparking portal like the plague.

 

Neither of them say anything for a moment, but then Maddie puts a gloved hand on the uncharacteristically silent Jack's arm and starts to pull him towards the lab door, "Just fine, Jasmine. We'll be discussing something upstairs now. Don't bother us, kids."

 

And with that, Jack and Maddie disappear upstairs, slump evident in their every movement. Jazz looks around a bit unsteadily before her eyes land on the three teens still standing dumbly in the corner.

 

She walks up to Danny and puts a hand on his shoulder, "I have to go after them. They need to remember that they've created _so much_ in their life, and that this is not a failure, only a setback." She leans in and whispers, "Don't let them touch _anything_. I'll be back soon."

 

Jazz gives his shoulder one final pat before following the path of their parents, closing the second level door behind her.

 

 _Looks like the only way out is if I go through first or someone else comes downstairs to let us out_ , Danny notes mentally.

 

Danny unzips his helmet from around his head and takes it off, hearing two other people do the same as he stares after his sister. He sighs, then turns back around to look at his two friends.

 

He sees Sam _touching something._

 

Danny makes a garbled choking noise in his throat and drops his helmet to hurry forward and stop them, "Ah- _aah!_ Sam! Don't touch anything you don't know what that is you could get hurt and then I wouldn't know what to do and then I'd get hurt and then we'd be locked down here forever and-" he takes a big breathe and leans his body onto the table.

 

Well. Whoops. He didn't mean to freak out so early. That was probably a new record or something.

 

"Whoa, chill, Danny. I was only looking at this stupid diagram your dad probably made," Sam points to a paper with a green cartoon ghost scribbled on it. There is only one term drawn on the side which points to the middle of the ghost. It says 'ectoplasm.'

 

 _How thorough_ , Danny's mind quips sarcastically and in absolute derangement.

 

"Dude, you okay?" Tucker comes up behind Danny, eliciting a small shriek from his on-edge friend. He holds his hands up in surrender. "Aren't you afraid of ghosts like, really bad?"

 

Sam turns around and stares Danny down, "Wait, what? _You're_ afraid of ghosts? The son of two ghost hunters?" They snort. "I don't believe it. Look around you!" They swat a stray ecto-watch-ray off of a shelf. Danny has a small heart attack and makes an aborted motion to catch it. "There's nothing here that can hurt you, Danny, most of this _junk_ doesn't even work.  Not even that silly portal that leads to a fantasy dimension."

 

Danny swallows as she jabs a finger at the hole in the wall, wires crisscrossing its floor and two unearthed glowing green and red buttons on the inside very obviously labelled 'ON' and 'OFF.'

 

… _What._

 

"What," he deadpans incredulously.

 

"What?" Sam and Tucker parrot, glaring at each other for the act.

 

Danny moves towards the portal, agog, something sounding suspiciously like 'pinch, poke, you owe me a coke' coming from Tucker and then a meaty _thwack_ followed by an indignant ' _ow!_ '

 

He toes the caution line painted the closest to the portal in trepidation. Sam and Tucker come to stand beside him.

 

Tucker suddenly laughs, "Is that what I think it is? The 'ON' and 'OFF' buttons are _inside_ the machine?" He shakes his head, "Dude, I know your dad is kind of an idiot; but I didn't know that he was _that_ big of an idiot."

 

"Should we, like, go tell them or something?" Sam questions and slithers one of her arms out of the suit to pick at her nails, "They're kind of stupid, no offense Danny. How did they not notice? Maybe it serves them right that their invention didn't work if they make screw-ups like this in the process."

 

"No, they need to know. They looked so… sad and disappointed when it didn't work. They'll be happy to know that they just got too excited and made a mistake." _That is,_ Danny's mind adds, _if it even works after you press the 'ON' button._

 

"Yeah, but what if it doesn't work even if they _do_ press the button? We'd have gotten their hopes up for nothing again, and then they'd be _double_ depressed," Tucker comments, unknowingly saying aloud Danny's thoughts.

 

"That's true." Sam apparently had shed the entire suit at some point, as they were now digging around in their pockets for lipstick. Tucker follows their lead and drops his suit in the corner along with Sam's. Danny doesn't because he's been ambushed by ecto-goop before without his suit on and knows the proper protocol for this situation. However, he's a bit too occupied in his head to yell at his friends about lab safety.

 

Danny scratches a hand through his freshly-washed hair and spikes it up unintentionally. He has a decision to make, and he needs a bit of time and consideration to make it.

 

Press the button or don't press the button?

 

Make his parents proud or make his parents… not-proud?

 

Possible injury or possible celebration?

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

 

"Hey, you should go in there and make sure pressing the button even works first." _Damn you, Sam._

 

Unfortunately, Tucker is staring blankly at his PDA in boredom, thus readily agreeing to the possible thrill. "Yeah, it probably won't work, knowing your parents; but it won't hurt to try, right?"

 

_Double damn you._

 

Danny sighs to mask the fear that bubbles in his chest. "Fine. But I'm opening the second level door first before I do anything, alright?" His friends grunt in agreement.

 

He finishes his task of opening the door, and even uses his limited lab-technology knowledge to program the door to stay open until commanded otherwise. He walks back over to the portal with twitchy movements, dread filled chemicals infusing with every blood cell pumped through his body.

 

 _But this isn't any different from every single day of your life_ , his mind wheedles, _besides, your parents will thank you for this._

 

 _Your_ friends _will thank you for this._

 

Danny steps cautiously into the machine, his two friends crowding around the entrance with curiosity in their eyes. He carefully avoids the extremely thick and numerous wires lounging about the floor as he moves closer to the two buttons, heedful of his treacherous position.

 

Unease and generally bad, unlucky sensations prickle his neck. The 'ON' and 'OFF' buttons are audibly buzzing with copious amounts of electricity. In fact, the entire _machine_ is charged with electricity, sparks raining down like some kind of gaping maw of thunder.  The very air itself moves with Danny, fuzzing his skin and senses.

 

"Guys," he calls back weakly, "I think this thing is too charged up. I might cause it to explode if I try to re-direct the energy right now."

 

He turns around and sees that Sam and Tucker's faces aren't so blasé anymore, and are showing traces of worry. They both nod their heads hurriedly and motion for Danny to come back to the marginal safety of the open lab.

 

Danny shivers and jerks slightly. The pure electrical energy of the machine is frying his nerves (or is it ecto-energy? Oh, god, don't think about it, don't think-)

 

He trips over a wire, hand automatically shooting out to grab the wall.

 

He hears a click. A damning sound. Sam and Tucker's faces are the last thing Danny sees before a whine of energy and a sound like standing right next to a jet plane cuts his senses off with a blinding light.

 

Burning, itching, spasming chaos is wrought through the ephemeral body of flesh standing in the way of a spacial hole being ripped into another dimension.

 

His eyes pop out and roll onto the floor with the force that hits his head, swallowed by the all-encompassing light. His back blisters off layer by layer and exposes his boiling organs. Lungs and a stomach fill with blood and ectoplasm and fear before bursting into the light. Two legs, two arms, one heart doesn't exist anymore, eaten in one gulping glow.

 

Something inside of the metaphorical body trapped between two worlds shifts and changes, locking into place with glowing green finality.

 

Danny screams with air from Schrödinger's lungs.

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

" _I'm gonna be an astronaut, mama!" Little Daniel Fenton reaches out grubby paws to his mother's clean dress, grabbing ahold and hanging on tight, "I just know it! Mrs. Gerber said we could go to the planetarium for a field trip next month!"_

 

_Maddie Fenton ruffles her son's long, curly black hair with a kind disposition. "That is a very prestigious job, you know. You're going to have to work hard to make it to the stars one day, Dannielle."_

 

_Daniel nods seriously, baby blue eyes full of a blossoming light that would be snuffed out in the years to come._

 

_He would give anything to reach the stars and the moon._

 

_Anything in his life._

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

Danny aborts the movement to fill his chest with air as he turns his eyes skyward to the perfectly dark sky. He's out of the city of Amity Park and in an open field – he can tell by the lack of light pollution. He doesn't really care where he is, though. He just cares that he can see what appears to be every single star in the northern hemisphere.

 

It is like a dream.

 

"Little Dipper," he says with a mouth that doesn't move, eyes he can't feel finding the constellation with pinpoint and trained accuracy, "Big Dipper."

 

He feels the need to scrub a hand through hair that _should be_ ruffling with the wind right now, but none of his limbs respond.

 

 _That's odd_ , his mind says distractedly, _maybe I got a haircut?_

 

"Orion's Belt."

 

_Why can't I move?_

 

"Ursa Minor."

 

_Where are my hands?_

 

"Draco."

 

_Where are my lungs?_

 

"…Cassiopeia"

 

_I can't feel my body._

 

"A… A-andromeda."

 

_I can't feel my body._

 

"Peg… pega…sssss…"

 

_I can't feel my body!_

 

"… …"

 

Danny can't breathe.

 

٩

 

۶

 

٩

 

Danny _breathes_ and opens his eyes, bodily functions slowly coming back online one by one.  Some are challenged, others click together like they never left.

 

First he sees a blurry picture of flashing red lights and two familiar faces leaning over him. Then he hears a thumping sound in his ears ( _my ears my eyes all gone all gone_ , his mind is screaming but he can't tell why so he ignores it, ignores the sensation of not being able to _feel_ ) that must be his blood pumping overtime, then his hearing comes back with a really loud annoying noise that sounds like the lab alarms. And that's weird, because didn't he leave his two untrained friends down in the lab for some reason?

 

Next he feels his mouth, his jaw, his tongue, his neck, his chest (it feels different, it feels funny, it feels _good_ ) his stomach (empty; he must've thrown up) his hips and legs and…

 

"Ugh… my head." His splitting headache.

 

Gasping, "Danny? Danny?" Nothing else.

 

"W-wha… Wha's goin' on?" He tries, mouth feeling like cotton. He sits up and gives a sweep of the floor to make sure he didn't land in his own vomit. Somehow, there is nothing. His mind glasses over. "What did you guys touch? Why are the alarms going off? And for heaven's sake, _where_ _are your hazmat suits?_ "

 

He looks at Tucker, then at Sam. Their faces are both stuck in horror and paleness that Danny has never seen them look like before. Sam is suddenly fumbling with one of their pockets while Tucker slowly raises a hand to brush softly against Danny's cheek.

 

"Danny…?" He says tentatively, like a miracle had just happened and he still couldn't believe it.

 

Danny makes a face and draws away, unsettled by the physical affection and awed look, "What? Did something happen?"

 

A compact mirror is shoved in his face by a hand with painted black nails. He scoffs and takes it, thinking that maybe another ecto-sample had clung to his head and made his hair green again. He'd have to explain to his two shell-shocked friends that it was a normal event, nothing to worry about...

 

Instead he stares, uncomprehendingly, at the boy with the strong jaw, thick pale eyebrows, and flowing white hair in the tiny mirror.

 

The boy stares back, blinking two glowing green eyes.

 

"What... d-did you two... what's happen... ah... to me?" He whispers haltingly, reaching up one white gloved hand to pull at his supposed face. The skin around his eyes is dark with bruising and his skin looks almost grey it's so pale. His eyelashes are just as white as his hair and eyebrows.

 

He doesn't even notice how oddly masculine he suddenly _looks_ and _sounds_ (an echoing voice only heard in animated moves, from monsters, from spirits, from _gho-_ ) because he's too busy freaking out.

 

"Nothing; listen, Danny, you went into the portal…" Tucker begins.

 

"…And you were thrown out like… this." Sam ends.

 

Danny blinks and belatedly realizes that his entire body has changed, too. Gone is his mostly white and black hazmat suit, replaced by a mostly _black_ and white hazmat suit. However, that's not the weirdest thing.

 

The absolute weirdest thing that he notices ( _you're glowing_ green _, Danny_ , his mind tries to remind him. The thought doesn't take hold) is that his chest is flat and broader than he has ever seen, and his waist and hips are more slight than they have been since he was ten.

 

He slowly brings the mirror back up to his face. His slightly glowing _green_ skin and very-much-so glowing _green_ eyes stare brazenly back at him.

 

He distantly hears someone thumping down the stairs.

 

Sam slaps him in the back of the head harshly, and he can only tell it's Sam because it _freaking hurts_. He reels back up to yell ' _What the hell, Sam?_ ' at her when a blinding light flashes and Danny's brain screeches to a halt in panic. Something in his mind is screaming at the same time that the rest of his body is also screaming, so he can't figure out what the hell is going on before his parents and Jazz come bowling into the room with wild eyes and a concerning lack of safe body suits.

 

"Dann- Oh, my _stars_ ," his mother gasps, worried gaze quickly sliding from her son's form onto the _working_ swirling green portal. She walks, zombie-fied, to the machine and stares into its depths. Jack follows her lead, dropping the stupidly-named baseball bat he had carried in with a far-away look on his face.

 

"Danny… Danny, oh my god… _Danny_ ," Tucker is repeating as he is suddenly gripping much too tightly onto his arm, "Look at your body again, Danny. Just look."

 

So Danny does, nearly dropping the mirror in surprise as he finds himself looking into blue eyes, spotty red skin, and lanky black hair.

 

He was back to normal.

 

 _Whatever normal is,_ his mind finishes.

 

Jazz comes up and rubs his back as he silently hyperventilates, mind filtering out the technical-jargon his parents are babbling in the corner, "Danny, are you okay? Did you do this?" The shivering teen doesn't respond immediately, prompting another line of questioning, "Danny, please say something and tell me what happened."

 

He breathes in, shares a look with both Sam and Tucker, then fully faces his sister with what he hopes is a mostly calm and rational expression. "We didn't do anything, actually. It made a really loud noise when we were standing around and finally powered up. I think it just needed some time to work. I kind of freaked out and fell over – you know how I am."

 

Jazz stares him in the eyes, an unreadable look on her face, before she nods and walks over to their excited parents, ready to play the understanding and educated daughter so that her sibling can escape.

 

Danny clenches his jaw (a jaw filled with teeth, a tongue, a voice, and _breath_ ) and stands up slowly, careful of the nausea in his stomach. His two friends helpfully, but covertly, aid him in standing and walk him out of the second level into the first.

 

He mechanically strips himself of his hazmat suit, paying no mind to his now very obviously unbound chest as he ghosts (ha!) up the stairs to the second floor bathroom. His two friends follow in general apprehension and confusion, unwilling to say anything and break Danny's trance.

 

He bonelessly collapses onto the bathroom floor, hurriedly flipping open the toilet seat to heave violently. Twin cries of ' _Danny!_ ' reach his numb ears.

 

He is officially Freaking Out with a capital F. And he will probably never stop Freaking Out until he figures out just _what the hell happened._

 

 _If this had been a normal day_ , Danny thinks wearily as his two friends drag him into his room and lay him on the bed, _then I would have been nervous about showing Sam my room._

 

His eyes drift unwillingly closed, friends hovering uncertainly by his bed. His last coherent thought being: _Did I just_ die?

 

Danny _breathes._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Danny actually just lose his entire body in that portal, reform as a ghost, then come out still half alive? I don't know. Maybe. That or all of the light gore I just wrote was a hallucination.
> 
> If you think that Danny's parents are incredibly neglectful for just leaving their son collapsed on the floor, then you are correct. It is no secret in the show that the Fenton's jobs comes before their children.


	11. li namguhng

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li teaches Danny about Borderline Personality Disorder via two flashbacks of the before-time Danny dies in the portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tense situations, discussions of medical abuse

 

Danny could not _believe_ that he was crushing on this… this…

 

_Buffoon._

 

"Danny- _ahgi!_ " Li yelled from the bottom of his yard, dressed entirely wrong for the weather and shoving something unseen into an odd-shaped bag, "Come down and play!"

 

Danny sighed and shucked his window open, some of his room's musty air escaping in the _very_ early morning light, _"How the hell did you find out where I live?"_

 

"Oh, I have my ways." Li said evasively with a curl of dark bloody red lips. Danny interpreted this as 'Kwan' and furrowed his brow in annoyance, reminding himself to send the football playing Chinese American a peeved and chastising text later.

 

"What do you want?" He called down and leaned awkwardly across his desk in order to be seen out the window. His heart fluttered in excitement, but he tried not to let it show due to his embarrassment.

 

"Why don't you come down and see?" said the mysterious makeup boy, rocking back and forth on his dangerously high heels like it was nothing.

 

" _Uuugh!_ " Danny groaned audibly and obviously, trying to portray just how done he was with Li. Nevertheless, he slid on a fuzzy camo-print jacket that absolutely swamped him and attempted to stifle his grin as he made his way carefully and silently down the steps.

 

He's stopped by the presence of his sister in the kitchen. She was looking out the kitchen window with distaste clear on her face. "Danny, why is there a prostitute on our front lawn?"

 

Danny snorted and walked to the door, "I'm telling him you said that."

 

Jazz said something catty like 'maybe he'd leave you alone if you did' and tiredly stomped back upstairs, no doubt to pretend she dreamed the whole experienced up.

 

No one approved of Li in any sense of the word in his house. Even Tucker and Sam made odd faces whenever he gushed excitedly at lunch about him, the conversations going something like: 'and then Li did something totally random' or 'I was so surprised all I could do was stand there with my mouth hanging open!'

 

 _Of course_ , Danny defended, _no one can understand Li's zany outlook on life but me._

 

 _Except Kwan_ , his mind added, but he brushed that off with a mental wave. Kwan was like a box of dry, saltless crackers next to the Korean American.

 

Li immediately flung a warm arm around his short freshman friend as soon as the Fenton stepped outside, shouted 'and we're off!' before he was dragging Danny through a myriad of colorful back alleys and down the back streets to a different part of town.

 

Danny was, as per usual in Li's presence, excited out of his damn mind. Li would yell and wave and smile at almost every person they passed; it made Danny feel like he was a part of _something_ , just by clinging to Li and smiling as brightly as he felt at all of the people he saw.

 

There were a lot of people already up an about, opening small shops and carting baskets of fresh produce around. It felt like a whole other _world,_ but Danny knew that it was the Chinatown just a few hours' walk from his house. He wondered how his tall friend managed to distract Danny for so long without boring him as they walked there.

 

Strutting (in Li's case) down the street, the tall and fashionably dressed boy pointed out all of the people he knew, regaling tales that sounded unbelievable to his tiny, awed friend.

 

"And that over there is Hoa, she likes to try and sell me weed in the middle of the night. I always say no, don't give me that look. Down over there is Mrs. Matsuda, and, yes - I know she's an eighty year old woman wearing a tube top. We've all tried to get her to wear something _more_ , but there's just no stopping her. In that store is Seok; he's mean, don't look him in the eyes, he'll bite your head off and try to sell you kumquat in the same breath. _That_ beauty is Yin; I'm pretty sure she and Kwan are related, but he's never given me a straight answer."

 

Danny's head spun with the intake of information. While he was confused, Li had somehow sneakily bought him a stick with grilled meat on it, but he was so high on the energy of _this_ that he ate it without complaint.

 

"Yo!" They came upon Kwan, for once devoid of his red varsity jacket. Li handed off the rest of his snack to Danny (he ate it with butterflies in his stomach) and hugged his friend.

 

"Kwan! So glad you could meet us," Li smiled somewhat slyly and turned back to Danny with an oily look, "Say, Danny…"

 

 _Uh oh_ , Danny thought with half a mouthful of chewed meat.

 

"Wanna come help us pull a prank, little-man? We've been planning it for weeks, but we need three people to get it done." Li flashed him a small, sincere smile, "I think it'd be more fun if _you_ came along, though. That's why I brought you here."

 

Danny swallowed his food, still a bit mystified of his situation. He barely acknowledged Kwan's little 'hi Danny' before he nodded his head and got himself into something he didn't understand, but was greatly excited about anyway.

 

Li clapped his hands together with an "Awesome!" before abruptly shucking off his high heels and hiding them behind a crate.

 

Danny stepped closer as Li tied up his long brown hair and Kwan pulled on a bandanna that hid most of his face.

 

_Oh, so this is serious business then._

 

The shortest member of the group resisted the urge to childishly ask 'what can I do?' Li dug around in his lumpy handbag and pulled out three walkie talkies, a series of ropes and pulleys, and a store-bought meringue pie.

 

Danny tried to wrap his head around just what in the world those three seemingly unrelated items could be used for. He drew a blank.

 

"Okay, so, here's what we need to do," Li said conspiringly as he laid out a crudely drawn map of the immediate area, including a residential apartment block. "I'll be the distraction. I'll stand in full view of Dũng's window and do… _something._ Kwan, I need you to be _here_ ," he points to a balcony just above the marked apartment window, "and ready to jump in whenever the bird leaves the nest. You, my amazing little-man," he fully faced Danny with a light in his eyes that made Danny's throat close, "are gonna be _here_ , under this spot, holding the rope until Kwan radios you to let go. Sound fair?"

 

Kwan nodded, and Danny followed the jock's lead even though he still had almost no clue as to what they were _really_ doing. All he knew was that his smile wouldn't go away and his limbs were pumped with energy he hadn't felt so purely in _years._

 

"Okay, so Kwan's code name is Wonton Soup, mine's Street Walker, and we decided that yours would be Ghost Boy, since you're so pale," Kwan and Li grinned at each other, then at Danny, as if their idea was the best thing _ever_. Danny grinned right back, making a note to tell Jazz about _Street Walker._ She'd hate it. It would be the pinnacle of hilarity. _  
_

 

He felt really, truly happy right then; crouching around dirty corners with an irreplaceable smile, ignoring the weird looks sent at the three-man-team. It was like finding a purpose suddenly dropped in your lap, and nothing but joy could be felt for days afterwards.

 

"Alright, then we need to hurry and set up the pulley system. Dũng isn't gonna sleep forever! Try not to knock into anything; he doesn't sleep too heavily, and vibrations wake him up faster than noise." Li jogged up the street and to a seemingly random apartment building, craning his neck up to pinpoint the window before waving his two comrades over.

 

Kwan helped Danny scale the side of the building using balconies and fire escapes. It all sent a rush of adrenaline through Danny's body, and he couldn't help but give Li a tiny, excited wave once he was fully crouched under the window. He helped Kwan tie everything together, placing the pie in the perfect position to collide with an unsuspecting person's face.

 

A bit of static came through the walkie talkie clipped to Danny's belt, then Kwan's voice said 'All clear, ready when you are, Street Walker.'

 

'In position, Wonton Soup. How are you doing, Ghost Boy?'

 

'Ready.' He squeaked out, nerves tingling and sweat building up in his hands.

 

Li clipped his walkie talkie back onto his belt and appeared to deliberate something for a moment. Then, a blinding grin came over his face, and he took a deep breathe before belting out:

 

" _On top of spaghetti,_  
_All covered with cheese,_  
_I lost my poor meatball,_  
_When somebody sneezed."_

 

Danny could barely keep a shriek of hilarity from coming out as he tightened his grip on his rope, muscles coiled.

 

" _It rolled off the table,_  
_And on to the floor,_  
_And then my poor meatball,_  
_Rolled out of the door."_

 

Someone could be heard cursing in Vietnamese and banging objects around in the apartment above Danny's head.

 

" _It rolled in the garden,_  
_And under a bush,_  
_And then my poor meatball,_  
_Was nothing but mush."_

 

" _Namguhng!_ " A very angry someone shouted Li's last name as they stomped to the window, " _I'm going to beat your a-_ "

 

'Now, Ghost Boy!'

 

Danny let go of the rope and heard a wet smack coupled with a surprised shout. Seconds later, the pie tin dropped to the ground below as a body flung itself out of the window and landed on the ground with steady, bare feet.

 

Li took a few precious moments to scream before catapulting himself down the street with both terror and amusement. The unknown person sprinted after him with only a pair of blue sleeping pants on, shouting obscenities the whole way.

 

'Okay, Ghost boy, I'm going in. Make sure no one tries to call the police before I get out.'

 

'Gotcha.' Danny responded to Kwan, and refused to say those ridiculous code names if he didn't have to.

 

'Ghost Boy! Use the code names!' A breathless Li suddenly came to life from his walkie talkie. How had he gotten away from the enraged person so fast?

 

'How ya' doin', Wonton?'

 

'Not a single hitch.' Kwan answered. Danny could already hear him making his way down the side of the building.

 

'Okay, both of you, rendezvous at the Ho Sai Gai!'

 

'Roger!' Kwan was suddenly beside him on the balcony, holding out a hand to help him down, "You did a good job, Danny. This was really fun."

 

Danny grinned stupidly and hopped down with Kwan. "What did you even do?"

 

Kwan smiled, a sly look that was unsuited for his normally kind face, "Oh, nothing much. Just planted a secret stash of raunchy porn for his girlfriend to find."

 

Danny wondered what in the world the man named Dũng had done to deserve such devious treatment.

 

 _Knowing Li, it probably has something to do with his precious high heels_ , Danny's mind supplied.

 

He then followed the taller teen out of the residential district and into the more populous food section. Wafts of smells invaded his nose as he pushed past many people with many faces. He distantly wished that Kwan was like his friends, and would take hold of his hand in large crowds.

 

Just as that thought passed his mind, he realized that he had lost sight of his broad-shouldered leader.

 

"Kwan?" He called out, not yet allowing himself to panic, "Kwan, where are you?"

 

" _Hey!_ "

 

Danny whirled, along with most of the crowd, to see the same shirtless bronzed person from before making their way towards Danny. How in the world the imposing man had recognized Danny was beyond him, but maybe it was because he was the only pale latino person in a crowd of differing Asian people.

 

Danny cursed and ran for it, mind going back to the time in the alley with the two adults manhandling him. No _way_ was he sticking around to play 'the talking game' this time!

 

He inexpertly weaved through the stifling crowd, deathly aware of the gaining adversary. That man looked buff, sweaty, and most importantly of all, _angry_ , meaning he might've been a loaded gun ready to fire. Or someone who was fine with beating up a fourteen-year-old in public.

 

As he was breathlessly sprinting past an alley between two stalls, a strong arm suddenly yanked him into the darkness. He let out a scream, but was quickly buried into the person's chest and huddled close to the ground. He could hear heavy feet thud past.

 

He was safe.

 

The person moved him away from his crushed position with a shaky sigh, "Wow - that was close. Sorry, little-man; I should have lost him better than that."

 

Danny stared up into the guilty, pleasant face of Li.

 

Before his sophomore friend could say anymore, Danny had spun his hand back and slapped it right across Li's face. He could barely feel his untrimmed nails catch on skin, but he paid it no mind, because right then he was _pissed._

 

"Who was that? What did you do to him? He was gonna hurt me!" Danny pushed back tears in favor of anger, "Why would you let me get chased like that!?"

 

"Aw, _ahgi_ , I didn't think he'd be _that_ mad. Besides, Dũng wouldn't _really_ hurt you, he'd just-" he cut himself off suddenly, a strained look on his face as he visibly swallowed.

 

Danny pushed himself away, going to stand near the other wall of the alley. He stared at Li as the tall teen seemed to debate with himself.

 

Finally, "I'm sorry, Danny. I'm really bad at this sometimes. I keep making excuses for the things I do. I just…" He runs a hand through his untied hair, "I just wanted to make you happy. You're never happy, you know? And that makes me sad, because you're such a sweet, funny boy who doesn't deserve all the flak you get."

 

Li shrugged helplessly and peered from under his wave of hair at Danny, making no move to come any closer to the fuming teen.

 

Danny slowly unwound himself, fingers being undug from his palms and tense frame reluctantly relaxing with a drawn-out sigh, "It's okay, Li. I was just scared."

 

Li smiled tightly and walked forward to fold Danny into his arms again, wiping the trail of blood from Danny's swipe of anger off onto the black hair, "Thanks, Danny. Sorry I didn't think things through."

 

Danny scoffed, "Oh, you know - No biggie."

 

Li laughed lightly and rocked their forms back and forth. It was incredibly calming.

 

Their moment was broken by two walkie talkies simultaneously crackling to life, 'Uh, Street Walker? Ghost Boy? Where are you?'

 

Li made a high, thin noise in his throat and drew back, unclipped Danny's walkie talkie and held it to his face. "Oh, just stopped to chat in a seedy alley. No big deal," he carded a hand through Danny's hair as he said this, small wry smile pointed down and dark eyes twinkling with something unknown.

 

'Oh, okay. Well, you all should hurry to the Ho Sai Gai. Mrs. Matsuda is giving me sleazy eyes and I don't know how much more I can take.'

 

Li laughed and moved Danny to the mouth of the alley with a gentle push of his hand, "No pressure, Wonton Soup. Over and out."

 

When they walked through the crowds, Danny took a leap of faith and slid his hand into Li's. Li didn't stop, only gripped his hand harder and moved a little slower.

 

Danny grinned, head full of stars and stomach full of bugs, and felt like a very lucky person.

 

When they got to the restaurant, Li had let out an angry squawk at hearing just _how_ Kwan had lost Danny in the crowd. He pushed his Chinese American friend over and onto a waiting Mrs. Matsuda with a shouted " _You should've held his hand!_ "

 

Danny laughed all the way home as they abandoned their friend to the chattering elder dressed in clothes entirely inappropriate for a woman of her age. Li closed his eyes in the mid-morning sunlight with content, leading his short freshman friend to all of the cheap, fun stores he could find to make up for his harrowing experience being chased around Chinatown by a shirtless man trained in Vovinam.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Hurry up, Li!" Danny jogged up the largest hill in Amity Park at an excited pace, frequently looking over his shoulder at his slower friend.

 

"I'm – _hoo_ – coming!" Li huffed and puffed from behind him, "You should've told me we'd be – _huu_ – climbing hills, _ahgi_ \- I would've worn something less _bedazzled_ and more appropriate."

 

Danny hopped giddily on one foot as he reached the top, mouth opening to let out an awed breath at the sight he saw.

 

Stars; _so many_ stars.

 

Danny barely acknowledged the heavy-breathing Li that had finally come to a stop beside him on the top of the hill, too enraptured by his most favorite sight in the world.

 

He only dragged his eyes away when he belatedly realized that Li had yet to once look up at the stars. He was, instead, staring full-on at Danny.

 

Confused, "What's wrong, Li? Aren't the stars _amazing?_ "

 

Li blinked once, twice, and still didn't look away. "Oh, yes. They're great." He stepped a little closer and looked down with an unreadable expression, "But there's someone much brighter than stars that I'd rather look at right now."

 

Danny felt heat crawl up his neck as that overwhelmed feeling he sometimes got around Li made itself known once more. He didn't know how to respond, so he stood very still and didn't blink.

 

Li breathed out and backed off a little, "Sorry, didn't mean to do that."

 

"Didn't mean to do what?" Danny questioned despite his trepidation at the answer.

 

Li smiled, a broken look which didn't suit him, "Sometimes I'm a little bit too much, I know. I just… Can't really control myself around certain people…" He trailed off and finally looked away, hands shoved into dress pockets.

 

"What do you mean?" He asked again, simply because it felt like the right thing to do.

 

"Well… There's something a little bit different about me, Danny," he started quietly, gently, as if leading Danny through a complex set of instructions, "And it's nothing bad, I don't think. No, I'm not bad. I learned that a long time ago.

 

"One of my… side-effects, I guess you could say, is that I have the tendency to…" he chewed his lip, "fall in and out of love very easily. It doesn't sound too bad until you actually see it in action. Take the other day, for example."

 

He appeared to struggle with himself a bit, "The other day… Was a test, _ahgi_ , for you. And maybe even Kwan, I don't know if I even feel the need to put him through those anymore. But he knows that I still might, so he's always ready." He ran a hand shakily through his unbound hair.

 

Danny felt a bit more confusion, "What do you mean 'a test' for me? A test for what?"

 

Li smiled again, eyes sad and unknown, "It was a test to see if you'd run from me… or towards me. Even when I did something… _bad_ to you. To see if you still… wanted me as your friend."

 

Danny's mind flopped around and re-arranged itself at the news. A part of it made sense, but some of it… didn't.

 

"I just love you so much. But I don't think I could bear it if you got bored of me, or annoyed, or suddenly decided that I was too much of a hassle to deal with every day. So I sort of do these… tests, with a lot of people I meet."

 

 _Oh,_ Danny's mind said, _I think I understand_.

 

"I think I understand," Danny stepped forward into the wavering Li's space, "I think I do that with my friends sometimes, too. It feels like a tug-of-war in your head, right? Only, maybe yours is more intense than mine…" He trailed off uncertainly, but Li only gave him a full and bright smile.

 

"Yes, exactly! Oh, little-man, you're so smart! Thanks for understanding. I didn't mean to hurt you, really, I didn't. And I don't want to manipulate you into spending time with me, either, I promise!" The tall Korean American grabbed Danny in a one-armed hug and turned him towards the stars once more. "This is a good night. Can you feel it, _ahgi_? It's a _really_ good night."

 

Danny laughed light-heartedly at Li's sudden warmth and attention, "Yeah, I think it is."

 

They both basked in the dim light of the stars, picking apart every pinprick of gaseous fire with their wide eyes and open hearts.

 

"I want to be an astronaut," Danny started, "To reach the moon or the stars or... anything else out there, really, has been a dream that I can't ever remember not having."

 

He offered Li the time to respond by only gazing at the stars without saying anything more.

 

"…I want to be a doctor. For people like me, who never get any help, and are treated badly by the people who don't understand," Li breathed out with a soft smile. "I've been wanting this path for a long time."

 

Danny nodded his head sagely, "So, then we both have long journeys full of tests and studying and schooling to get through. To our supposedly 'impossible' goals."

 

"Right you are, little-man. But," Li bodily flopped onto the grass, bringing a surprised and happy Danny with him, "I think we can make it. No, I _know_ we can make it. Together, even."

 

Danny relaxed against Li as they, somehow, ended up lounging on the ground, "That sounds... nice."

 

They found themselves spending many hours into the black morning either gazing at the stars with hopeful eyes or speaking lightly about their prospective futures.

 

In a lull of stargazing, a sudden thought came to Danny's mind.

 

"Hey, Li?"

 

"Yes, _ahgi?_ "

 

"What does that mean?"

 

A swish of hair, "What does what mean?"

 

"Ah-gi. What you keep calling me."

 

A tiny, almost apprehensive laugh, "Oh, it means _baby._ "

 

A tic formed in Danny's jaw as he swiftly stole Li's expensive glow-in-the-dark high heels and ran off with them, leading his apologetic friend halfway across the park before they went down in a rolling ball of laughter and neatly rolled their idiot selves into a mucky pond.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO this is not a romance! Li and Danny aren't going to date, and there are NO romantic feelings between them. It is all a very deep and understanding love, but in a different way. It doesn't make it any less than romance or invalid, just different.
> 
> So; Danny has depression and Li has Borderline Personality Disorder. They have a lot of overlapping symptoms, but it isn't the same. BPD people are often treated as manipulative and dangerous, thus leading their lives to be more complicated then it really needs to be. Li observed this at a young age, and wanted to change the rumors and false diagnosis that he was seeing rampant in the medical community, so he has a big dream to become a doctor to help all of his fellow BPD people.


	12. fight me and Win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Horror, violence, mild injury, gore, body and mind horror, dissociation, panic attacks, child neglect

 

The youngest Fenton screams into his pillow and resists the urge to…

 

 _Déjà vu_ , his traitorous mind quips, _you know where this is going._

 

Danny sighs and ignores the entity of his mind as he sluggishly picks up his phone. It is crammed with unread messages from Sam, Tucker, and the chat group.

 

He has to crack a small smile, though, when he notices a single message from Li. He opens it with a light heart, hoping for a suitable distraction.

 

_Sent at 10:46 p.m_

_LI: hey little man hows it?_

_DAN: its fine_

_LI: haha, isn't that a lie?_

_LI: you shouldn't tell lies Danny, or you won't get anything cute for xmas!_

 

Danny laughs softly with his face practically buried into his pillow. He could always count on Li to make him think about his own thoughts, but in a more roundabout way. Makes it less painful.

 

_DAN: yea something happened_

_DAN: down in my parents lab_

_DAN: I think something bad happened to me_

_DAN: I feel … different_

…

_LI: do you want me to come over? Or pick you up?_

_LI: im sure hoa and yin would like to see you again_

_LI: heard from the grapevine that theyre dating finally ~lol C ;_

…

…

…

_LI: Only if you're healthy, of course._

_LI: you are okay, right?_

_LI: Danny?_

…

_LI: ahgi?_

 

Danny is too busy quaking in his bed to look at his vibrating phone. His body jerks and convulses as he tries desperately to breathe, just _breathe._ He grapples at his torso and unwinds his ace binder without taking off his loose shirt in desperation.

 

There's a flash of light in his vision. His whole body locks up and seizes once, twice, before Danny is practically flying ( _you can't fly, you just_ can't _. Stop imagining things!_ ) out of bed to stand up, to do _something._

 

Fear grips his heart; what's left of the blood muscle. He isn't breathing. His eyes are gone his tongue is gone his limbs won't move _I've died I'm dead-_

 

Another flash of light and Danny drops heavily to the floor.

 

He breathes.

 

His phone is ringing. So he crawls to the floor where he dropped it and answers because what else is he supposed to do? Something weird? Something unnatural? Answering the phone _is_ _natural._

 

"Danny?" A worried voice fuzzes over, "Danny, what's wrong? What happened? Are you alright?"

 

"Ghh-" he tries to say something but he can't. He can't feel his lungs for a few seconds, and his throat might have well not even existed, "Hh- Li. _Li._ "

 

"Yes? Danny, can you breathe? Are you having an allergic reaction? A panic attack?"

 

Danny swallows, his throat clicking. His throat. Oh. He's breathing and has lungs and he's alive and Li is still talking oh no-

 

"Li. Ghost," he says stupidly.

 

"Ghost?" Li repeats, equally as confused

 

"There's a ghost," he mumbles, "I think…"

 

Li says something on the line, but it filters out of his brain.

 

Li tries again, this time saying something different. "Danny. Can you feel your toes?"

 

Danny can feel his toes, "Yesss…"

 

"Can you wiggle them for me?"

 

Danny wiggles them without thought, "Oh. I have toes."

 

Wow, what a concept.

 

"Good. Can you feel your legs?"

 

"…A-huh."

 

"Can you move them?"

 

"…A-huh…"

 

"Your arms?"

 

"Yup."

 

"Can you breathe really deep for me now, Danny?"

 

Danny breathes deep, rolling over onto his back on his dirty floor.

 

"Okay, Danny. Good job. How do you feel?"

 

"Like shit," he answers honestly. This elicits a small laugh from his friend, but it doesn't make Danny feel as light and airy as it usually does.

 

There's a couple of odd noises on the adjacent line. Danny hears someone call for ' _Namguhng!_ ' in an angry tone, and Li curses audibly into the receiver before there's a rush of wind blocking noise.

 

"Hey, _ahgi_ , are you going to be okay if I hang up right now? _Haha_ ; remember when we pranked that sweaty shirtless guy? Yeah, Dũng finally found the porn stash. Oh, boy, his girlfriend is _not_ happy…"

 

Danny smiles faintly at the memory; then frowns at the _other_ memory of said shirtless man chasing him around Chinatown. "Yea, I'll be fine. I've always been scared of ghosts. Yesterday just… messed me up. A lot." He adds the last part with a wince. He still can't tell if his body is sore or not from… whatever trauma it went through. Every now and again, he feels a chill come over his body, and then all of his muscles lock up. It's only through heavy calming breaths and concentration can he unlock himself again.

 

"Okay. Maybe go find your family. You have a sister, right? The one who thinks I'm going to corrupt you with my 'homosexual wiles?' Yeah, maybe you should go sleep with her tonight." Li speaks thoughtfully despite obviously running at full speed from an angry shouting Vietnamese martial artist.

 

Danny grunts "Will do," before hanging up. He shows a little bit of frustration by tossing his cell phone at the side of his bed. It hits the sheets with a dull _thunk_ , bounces off, and lies pitifully on the floor.

 

It then dies with a whiney hiss. Because he never charges the damn thing.

 

Danny sighs from his position on the floor, deciding to spend the night there. It wasn't the first time he'd fallen over in a weird place and happily went to sleep just to avoid standing up again.

 

Unfortunately, his hot date with the floor just wasn't happening that night. He is spurned into temporary action by his bladder, unwilling to do something so degrading as piss himself in the middle of the night because he was too busy panicking on the ground.

 

 _There is just some point that a tired, depressed boy has to give in to the wills of his body_ , Danny narrates as he heaves himself up from the floor.

 

He tiptoes to the shared second floor bathroom, shutting the door as quietly as he could. Unfortunately, peeing can't be silenced, not in an already silent house.

 

As he debates the pros and cons of flushing the toilet in his head ( _this is gonna be loud as hell_ vs. _yeah, but at least Jazz won't yell at me in the morning for leaving a 'mess' in the toilet_ ) he absentmindedly turns towards the mirror above the sink.

 

A darker skinned latino boy with white hair and glowing green eyes stares back.

 

Danny practically throws himself into the wall trying to close his eyes and jerk his head away as fast as he can. When he shakily opens them, his normal, blue-eyed black-haired self stares at him with a frightened look.

 

He lets out a shaky breath, and even giggles a little in hysteria. His breath fogs up the mirror in a strange pattern, but he just wipes it away and opens the bathroom door.

 

 _Nothing to see here, folks_ , he concocts out of derangement, _move along, now, or pay the full price._

 

Even if he _was_ going to flush the toilet, he forgets to, and turns off the lights as he walks blindly back out into the hallway.

 

He takes a curious look down the stairs, and freezes. It's nothing big, just… The lab door seems to be open and emitting a roving green light. (Or, he's pretty sure the lab door is open. What else could that light be?) That doesn't happen very often. Maybe his parents wanted easy, constant access to their newest and biggest invention?

 

 _Yeah_ , he breathes an alarmingly icy breath that burns his throat all the way to his stomach. It makes him think of those times when he'd be sick and his mom would bring him hot soup and cold water. Drinking the soup followed by the water felt like pouring ice on a fire, _that's it._ _Nothing weird here. Nope._

 

The hand on his shoulder gives a comforting squeeze.

 

He shouts a little and spins around, arms flying out as if in defense. There's nothing there but darkness and echoes of his own short-lived voice.

 

 _This isn't real_ , he dissociates _, I'm not even real. Not right now._

 

And then he's unexpectedly falling _through_ the floor. Que another strained shout of surprise. He closes his eyes and pretends he didn't just see the first floor kitchen whiz past his head.

 

He lands heavily on his butt in what his mind identifies as the second level of the lab. A whimper of absolute terror is dragged unwillingly from his throat.

 

The open Ghost Portal swirls, green and foreboding. He swears he can hear the whispers of the electricity and ectoplasm call his name. _You're dead_ , it susurrus, _you're dead._

 

_Ghost boy._

 

Danny screams out his lungful of air and desperately pulls himself backwards towards the heavy door closing him from the first level. Someone- _something_ rubs through his hair, catching on every knot and gripping with a bruising, formless hand, dragging him towards the portal with an invisible force.

 

"No! _No no no!_ Please _stop!_ " He screams incoherently, terrified out of his mind. " _I don't wanna go back there! I can't! Help,_ please _, help I can't do this please stop please-_ "

 

He jerks to the side and falls onto his bare knees with a strangled cry, scrambling across the floor just inches away from swirling green to the lever controlling the opening of the portal. His vision blurs with tears as his hand brushes against the lever. _Just a bit more!_

 

His foot is grabbed, then his entire leg, and he's being tossed across the lab with a pressure trying to insert itself into his ears. He crashes into the shelf and knocks every bit of glass off of it, some beakers breaking and scattering debris. He hears a distant, cruel laugh that echoes unnaturally – _supernaturally -_ on the walls inside his head.

 

He claws at his chest, breathless, as he slides through the glass. He's sure that some of it must be in his skin already, but he doesn't care about that right now. No - right now he's dragging himself to his feet as cold wind slides against him. It pulls towards the swirling glow, ushering him inside.

 

But he resists, staggering to the door. It takes a few tries to get the scanner to accept his DNA, and his shaking hands won't push the six number code in, but he finally does it all.

 

Only to get the message: **ACCESS DENIED. FULL LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL IN EFFECT.**

 

Danny sobs in dismay. He doesn't know how to override this code!

 

 _Tucker_ , he begs desperately with his mind, _Tucker would know how._

 

_Tucker isn't here._

 

Something brushes against his throat. He stiffens, and the wind picks up, throwing small particles of glass and papers around.

 

That small touch on his throat turns into a vice that circles his neck and cuts off airflow. He struggles violently as he's slowly lifted into the air. The vision around him shimmers, and he sees the vague outline of something globous and glowing, one dripping arm attached to his crushed throat.

 

 _So soft_ , he _swears_ he hears it moan, _so fragile, a human._

 

Danny's losing consciousness quickly, his oxygen deprived brain kicking into overdrive and sending parting desperate thoughts. _This isn't real! This can't be happening! Please, save me, I don't want to die! I must be dead already - I can't feel…_

 

There's a flash of white light. Danny's futilely flailing limbs make contact with the ghost. It staggers back in surprise, dropping the previously human child in disbelief.

 

A white-haired, green-eyed ghost with a sizeable amount of ecto-energy has replaced the weak human.

 

Danny, meanwhile, is gasping on the floor, confused as to how he was suddenly dressed in the full-tightness of his hazmat suit. Then he gets a good look at the coloring of his suit and general masculine shape of his not-body, gasping a soft ' _oh no._ '

 

It was happening again.

 

He stops breathing. But then he notices that he doesn't seem to be running out of oxygen. So, he does the smart thing and panics.

 

The previously attacking ghost hovers uncertainly in the corner, watching this weird human-ghost-hybrid _flip_ its _shit_ in a very quiet and controlled manner.

 

Neither of them know how to continue and it shows in the awkward, stifling air as they stare each other down. Green, nearly human eyes gaze wildly into black holes of a melting, general area of where a face would be on a humanoid being.

 

In Danny's head, there's a war raging. Outside, however, he sets a steely, somewhat deranged look on the ghost that had previously tried to drag him into the still open Ghost Portal like some kind of meat popsicle it wanted to eat on the go.

 

" _Homaj, aŭ, kion ajn vi estas..._ " the ghost speaks in a familiar echoing voice, further fanning the flames of Danny's warring state, " _Kion vi scias pri vi mem?_ "

 

Danny only stares unnervingly. The ghost shifts, dripping ectoplasm that hisses and dissolves without a trace.

 

" _Dura amaso..._ " it says in a distinctly nervous voice. Danny ignores it and stalks over to the emergency switch next to the door, ready to flip the alarm and notify his parents of the ghostly intrusion.

 

But then he halts, mind somewhat returning to a rational state. He looks down at his… _body._

 

What would his parents do if they saw two ghosts ( _ghost looking boy; you're not a ghost. Aren't you?_ ) in the lab? Being mistakenly destroyed by his parents was _not_ on the top of his to-do list.

 

The actual ghost wavers visibly, suddenly becoming see-through and drifting towards Danny.

 

He freaks. "Stop!" His shout comes out as slightly deep and demanding, but also has a sickeningly identifiable echo tainting the word. Danny swallows and puts out a hand, palm forward to further punctuate his point, "Don't move."

 

The ghost suddenly seems ten times as nervous, " _Okay, okay! Nur ne pafos min._ "

 

Danny is confused at the language it uses; some of the words sounded English or Spanish, but others sounded like a weird mix that he'd never heard before. He makes a slightly coherent note in the back of his mind to ask either Li or Tucker later on about the unknown language.

 

"Now," he commands in his best 'I totally know what I'm doing' voice, "Go back in there." He points towards the Ghost Portal, hoping this would work.

 

The ghost nods the equivalent of its head and starts to drift towards the open portal. Danny follows it with his palm still raised, acting as a barrier between him and the ghost. Also, the manifestation of ectoplasm seemed more ill at ease when his palm was up, so he elected to keep it there until it was gone.

 

Maybe it was like a middle finger to ghosts?

 

Just before the ghost fused with the portal, however, it turns around and says, " _Mi kredas ke mi konas iun kiel vi. Lia nomo estas..._ Plasmius," the ectoplasmic being looks nervous as it says the word 'Plasmius', leading Danny to believe that it might be a place, important object, or other being. " _Sed li estas malbona novaĵo. Ne diru mi ne avertis vin. Adiaŭ._ "

 

And with that unknown parting statement, it was gone, melting into the swirling light.

 

Danny pauses, realizes, and then leaps for the portal's lever. It shuts much too slowly to calm Danny's frayed nerves, but it _does_ shut in the end with a loud _clank_ ing noise.

 

The alarms blare with sudden volume, causing Danny to jump about ten feet in the air in surprise. He waits for the falling sensation accompanying his supposed-to-be impossible height, then stares down in shock at the sight.

 

He was hovering. In the air.

 

...His legs are gone.

 

Danny screeches, suddenly thudding to the floor just as quickly as he had begun hovering. With a flash of light that leads the beginning of a panic attack in his mind ( _bloodless, formless, breathless, lifeless_ ) he switches back to his black hair, blues eyes, and sweaty night clothes.

 

Danny sits up, then reels at the amount of pain he's in. His throat feels like it's been through a shredder, his left leg feels either broken or _torn off_ ( _two legs, two arms, one heart no longer exists_ ) and his head splits open with a headache. He's pretty sure there's thousands of tiny glass shards in his knees and elbows. A few thin locks of hair drift to the floor as a trail of blood makes its way down his forehead and threatens to drip into his eye.

 

There's a three-second interval beeping coming from the second level door before two adults burst in with their built-in ray guns already charged and out.

 

Danny takes one look at his parents, his _saviors_ , and screams his already torn throat hoarse as he sobs into the arms quickly circling his beaten body.

 

"Danny! What in the world – how did you get down here? Both level doors are locked. What did you-" his mother cuts herself off at seeing his bruised body and broken glass blood-trail, "Danny? Oh, my gosh, were you dragged down here and attacked by…"

 

"A ghost!" he wheezily blubbers, "A… a ghost!"

 

"A _ghost?_ " His father echoes, previously concerned gaze already sweeping the lab with feverish eyes, "Where? How? Did'ja get a good look at- oh, hey, you don't look so hot, Danny-boy."

 

"No _shit,_ " he curses messily at his father, obviously hyperventilating at this point. He can barely keep a clear thought in his messed up head, and wishes his parents would hurry up and _move_ and get as far away from the portal as possible.

 

Maddie looks like she doesn't know whether to chastise her son for swearing at his father or to admonish her husband for not properly taking care of their son. Instead, she whips out a soft rag from her Special Edition Mother Hammerspace and places it over Danny's head and eyes, "Shh, Danny, shh. You need to calm down."

 

Danny growls and violently rips the cloth off of his head, oddly reflective eyes narrowing at his parents. "No! I don't want to calm down! I want you to get rid of _that portal!_ It's dangerous; just look around. Look what's happened after you leave it open for _one night!_ "

 

The parents look down at their furious son, both gazes aghast at his forceful _suggestion_ , "Now, young man, see here! We can protect you _just fine_ with all of our defensive and offensive inventions. There's no need to close the portal like this," Maddie stands to further look down on her boy, "We've worked for _years_ on this project. We can further so much more science with this. We can't just… _get rid of it_ because of one little mishap!"

 

Danny gulps in air at a terrifying pace, unbelieving of his mother's attitude and reasoning.

 

"And to think – it actually works! Danny, honey, you just don't understand like we do…" she sighs and places a hand on her head.

 

" _What do you think you're doing!?_ "

 

All three of them turn their attentions to the second level door where Jazz stands in her nightgown, face stormy and stance stiff. "You're _yelling_ at him about _ghosts_ when you _should be_ giving him _medical attention._ Just _look_ at him! _He looks like he got run over by a car!_ "

 

Jazz stomps over and uses all of her strength to pick up her younger brother. He groans in pain, but says nothing because he has no breath left.

 

 _"Josefina -"_ Their mother attempts to whip out the big (metaphorical) guns by using Jazz's first name, tone angered and appalled and everything.

 

"You should be _ashamed_ ," she warns while carrying Danny away, not having any of it. "To think I comforted you two when your _stupid invention_ didn't work. Laughable!" She swiftly makes her way up the numerous stairs out of the lab, gently laying Danny on the couch in the living room.

 

She carefully brushes bloody locks out of his face and leaves with an 'I'll be right back, Danny, don't worry.'

 

Danny listens to his sister putter about anxiously with only a fraction of his mind. He allows her to fix him up, her hands nervous and hesitating as they come across the three-pronged handprints all over his neck and leg. He even lets her carry him all the way up to her bedroom and lay him out on her clean-smelling bed.

 

He makes the small request that she plugs in his phone, and she complies. She even unplugs her own phone next to the table to replace it with Danny's before crawling into bed right next to him. She places a sweet, scared kiss on his forehead and traps him against her chest with a protective arm.

 

While his sister sleeps and his phone charges, Danny spends the entire night going over his body-unlocking and breathing exercises.

 

" _Can you feel your toes? Can you wiggle them for me? Can you feel your legs? Can you move them for me? Can you breathe?"_ Li's tinny voice lingers in Danny's head all the way into the early morning hours.

 

" _Do you feel real right now?"_

 

 _No_ , he mentally answers the ghost voice, _I don't._

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny's arm shoots out to silence his obnoxiously vibrating phone before it can wake his slumbering sister, "What do you want," he grates out. He sounds terrible.

 

"Whoa, Danny?" It's Sam.

 

" _Uuugh_ , I _really_ don't want to talk to you right now," he says, brutally honest and probably setting himself up for some serious guilt later.

 

"No, don't hang up! Please, Danny, talk to us."

 

Okay, that's new, it almost sounds like Sam _and_ Tucker on the same line…

 

"Are you two calling from the same phone or is this a three-way because I don't think I can afford a three-way on this phone plan." His brain is still shut off, obviously.

 

"Does it matter?" Sam huffs. The sound of rock-and-roll music greatly diminishes.

 

A sigh, "Yes, Danny – this is a three-way. Sam is paying for it, and she's also offering to upgrade our computers to include webcams with a face-to-face calling service."

 

Danny chuckles, hysteria still festering in his blood. "Oh, Tucker. You're so funny at 6 a.m."

 

A beat of silence. "Will you tell us anything about that day… in the lab?"

 

Danny's chuckles turn into laughter, "Which day in the lab? As of now, there is more than one." His sister stirs beside him.

 

"What, Danny, what happened? Why did you go back down to the lab?" This time it's Sam worrying about him, which is new.

 

"I didn't go down _voluntarily_ ," he sighs out with a twisting smile on his face, "Oh, no. I was dragged. By a ghost." He lets that sink in. "Through the _freaking floor_. Just _plop_ ; second floor all the way down to the basement in a few seconds flat."

 

"Huh? Are you serious?" Tucker sounds flummoxed, which is hilarious right now to Danny.

 

"Yup! And guess what? The _goddamn ghost portal was left open by my idiotic ghost-chasing parents who have no regard for other people's safety._ " He sounds dangerous, and revels in it. He's angry and he's finally talking about it after almost two days of rolling in his filth and pretending that he wasn't traumatized and seeing white flashes in his mind every time he closes his eyes.

 

"Danny, who're you talking to?" Jazz mumbles from beside him, sitting up in bed and scratching at her bedhead.

 

"Sam and Tucker," he says distractedly, "Hey, do you think it's possible for ghosts to go through walls and stuff? I mean, I didn't just _dream up_ being pulled through the hallway floor all the way to the lab by a glowing green blob of a ghost that spoke in a mix between English, Spanish, and who knows what… right?"

 

Jazz looks at him like he's spitting a river of live fish out of his mouth. He just shrugs and makes a face.

 

"Danny, what the hell?" Sam fizzles from over the phone, incredulous but still believing, "Did that _actually_ happen?"

 

"Good _lord_ ," Tucker adds. Danny silently agrees.

 

"I know, right? I'm buggin' out of my mind right now and…" he checks his phone with squinted eyes, "I have _a lot_ of texts from you guys. _Wow_ , that's a _whole bunch._ Can't you all just summarize it for me? Even if you don't, I'm deleting them right now."

 

Despite Tucker and Jazz having had exposure to his moods for many years, they still don't really know what to do with the sudden, sometimes almost violent switches Danny will go through. Thankfully, Sam seems pretty alright with it, and takes his mania in stride.

 

"Yeah, I'll do it. We basically just kept asking over and over about what happened and how you felt and a bunch of mushy stuff about how we still care about you and it was all our fault and yada yada yada…" They trail off, nasally voice pitching oddly and giving away her true emotions on the situation. For the strong front they put up, they were honestly worried about Danny, and it showed in a sense.

 

"So you _did_ do something in the lab to get the portal started." Jazz interrupts his thoughts and conversation with conviction in her voice.

 

Danny suddenly loses the panicky edge that drove him a few moments before as he quickly hangs up the phone, silencing two shouts of ' _don't hang up the phone!_ '

 

"Nothing, Jazz… Just… re-arranged some wires and pressed a few b-buttons," he stumbles over the word 'buttons' like a felon on death row. His sister's knowing eyes bore into him. He feels like he's going to pee himself in fright.

 

Or, he could just really need to pee in general.

 

"Bathroom," he chokes out, knowing that his sister would be too busy helping him stand and worrying over his health to question him further.

 

And she does exactly that - spending her time tying up her tangled hair in lieu of brushing it and moving to the side of the bed to grip his arm at its base and tug upwards.

 

By then, as he's standing completely upright, Danny notices something… wrong. And it isn't just the fact that the bruises on his leg are faded by an immense amount, but that his general state of pain from the night before was… gone.

 

So Danny does what Danny does and initiates the beginning sequences of one of his World Famous Meltdowns. Before he got too deep, however, he sent Li a quick text saying that he's okay and recovering from his midnight panic attack. He says nothing of the _ghost_ attack.

 

"No… no, I can go downstairs just fine," he tells his sister after she tries to lead him from the bathroom directly back to her room, "It's just bruising. It doesn't really hurt that much anymore; I must've been overreacting and stressed last night to make it hurt that much."

 

Jazz looks at him searchingly before conceding with an 'alright, if you say so' and walking directly in front of him down the stairs. He's very glad in that moment that his sister was aiming to become a psychologist and not a medicinal doctor, because he isn't very sure that he could explain away his quickly disappearing injuries so easily next to a half-trained nurse.

 

When he parts ways with the drowsy Jazz and gets to the living room/kitchen archway, he spots his mother speaking into the phone. He pauses to listen in, still wary of his ghost-crazy parents.

 

"It works, I'm telling you. It really does!" She seems to be on the edge of pleading with the other person. The voice from the other end of the phone (Danny desperately ignores how he can suddenly hear this new detail from across the room when he _swears_ he couldn't before… before…) sounds deep and soothing – like swallowing honey after a sore throat. But there's a certain lilt to the end of each sentence that makes Danny think that the person is only being polite in order to hide contempt.

 

Maddie spends a few more tense minutes in stilted conversation with the stranger. Her last plea of 'Please, V-' is cut off by an audible 'Goodbye, Madeline.' And then the voice made of molasses and poison is gone, replaced by a buzzing silence. His mom sighs and places the phone back down on the receiver.

 

When she turns around, it is to see a hunched over Danny with heavily bruised eyes signaling a lack of sleep and a prominent limp.

 

"Danny…" she tries, but gives up at seeing her son's closed off expression. She instead slinks down to the lab without trying to converse anymore. When she opens the door, Danny sees a moving green light pour out.

 

They still opened the Ghost Portal – despite what happened to Danny.

 

Hopeless, Danny wanders over to the previously used phone to do some snooping. With his totally stellar technological skills (Tucker snorts in his head) he slowly searches through the phone's 'Last Called' section until he finds a number labelled, simply and mysteriously, 'Old Friend.'

 

Feeling jittery, he barely debates the consequences of his actions before pressing 'Call', the phone automatically dialing the number. He presses the speaker to his ear before drawing it away sharply in alarm. The phone had never sounded _this_ loud before.

 

Nervous, he holds the phone a few inches away from his ear until he feels comfortable enough without being overwhelmed with the loud ringing. _The house phone must have better sound_ , he reasons, _my cell phone was quieter…_

 

Belatedly, he freaks out over realizing that he's calling a _complete stranger_ who may or may not be in a bad mood. He hopes they don't pick up.

 

Four rings.

 

_They don't seem to be picking up…_

 

Five rings.

 

_Nah, they're not picking up._

 

Six rings.

 

_They're too angry, probably._

 

Seven ri-

 

"Hello, Madeline," the deep voice rumbles in sarcasm, "and what could you _possibly_ want now, my dear?"

 

Danny breathes in sharply, sudden anxiety choking his throat, "Uhh…"

 

The person seems to notice that it isn't his mother that they're talking to anymore. "Hm? And who might you be?"

 

 _Crap,_ Danny takes the time to curse in his head because he really doesn't care about 'proper expressions of emotion _'_ at this point, _crap crap crap…_

 

"I'm… Danny."

 

He can practically hear the other person's lips pull into a smile, which is _really weird_ to hear over a phone, that's _gross._ "Well hello, Danny. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

 

Danny breathes probably _way_ too loudly. He likes to think that the unknown person isn't silently laughing at him for his obvious childish anxiety, but they probably are anyway. "You were… talking about… the Ghost Portal… right?"

 

There's a pause. "Yes. How did you know?"

 

"It's… dangerous," he explains feebly, "I saw… a ghost."

 

"I see. And what did you do?" The person seems to be more interested now, and also understanding, but for some reason that just unseats even more of Danny's mind and places him right over a pot of boiling water.

 

Or boiling ectoplasm.

 

"It… It…" He has to take a calming breath. The person is at the very least patient; they probably realized that he was just a scared child snooping around his parent's lab, "it… got me."

 

"It got you? Please explain."

 

 _Man this guy is articulate_ , he thinks distantly, _like a professional or something._ "Dragged me down to… the lab. In the middle of the night."

 

They make a concerned noise. Danny's not sure if it's acting or _really_ _good_ acting. "I see. And what did your parents do about this?"

 

"They… yelled at me?" He says it like it's a question, so he tries again, "I told them it hurt me, and to close the portal, and they just… left me on the floor."

 

He honestly doesn't know why he's basically pouring his troubles out to this mysterious 'Old Friend', but there's something about them that's just… soothing.

 

Problem is, Danny doesn't _do_ soothing. He is wary of this person's precision in conversation and diction. Their smooth and persuasive way of talking makes him want to jab something sharp into his ears and swirl it around until he destroys the liquids keeping him hearing and balanced.

 

"Daniel; that is a very serious situation. The way they treated you was unfair and neglectful. Do you understand?" Danny nods like they can see him, then winces and is about to speak, but the person is apparently perceptive enough to comprehend his situation before he does. "Do you have anyone that you can talk to about this that can immediately help you? I'm afraid that I don't live very close to you right now."

 

"I… I have an older sister. And very nice friends… who already know," he gets out, sort of disbelieving at the turn of events. This person was trying to _help_ him?

 

"Good. I want you to keep very close contact with them from now on. Can you do that?"

 

"Yeah. Yes. I can do that." Something about this person makes Danny want to stand up straight and speak properly. He tries not to dwell on that thought for too long, as it settles a feeling is discomfort in his chest.

 

"I'm also requesting that you perhaps call me again if something like this happens frequently. Just think of me as a… fairly distant family member that can offer you advice when you need it."

 

"…Oh, yes, that's… Fine. I'd like that." Then he pauses, frazzled mind suddenly shooting in many different directions at a fast speed, "Are you, though? A distant family member? Because I've met one of those and she wasn't very nice. She tried to give me ugly clothes and tell me I was going to hell or, like, something."

 

He quickly stops himself from babbling further, embarrassed at his suddenly talkative answer.

 

The person doesn't say anything for a few moments, and Danny worries that he's annoyed them before he hears faint chuckling.

 

Oh.

 

"No; I am not an 'actual' family member. You won't have to worry about any more _unsatisfactory_ meetings with those," they rumble out with none of that sarcastic lilt that Danny heard when they were talking to his mother. He relaxes slightly and smiles a little bit at the warm feelings the person's deep voice leaves him with.

 

Maybe this person wasn't so bad…?

 

He hears someone tromping up the lab steps, probably his dad with the weight in the movement (since when could he tell the weight of someone's movement?) He sort of fumbles with the phone in surprise and lets out a scared bleat.

 

It alerts his phone friend, "Daniel? Are you alright, my boy?"

 

" _Oh_ , just peachy. My dad is coming though and I _really_ don't want to look at him right now so I've gotta go bye!" He gets it all out in a rush and clamors the phone back onto its dock, quickly limping to the other room before his father can get a good look at him.

 

He realizes that he had, stupidly, escaped into the kitchen, which has no outlet but to the living room. With a sound of frustration, Danny slips out the front door in nothing but a long-sleeve nightshirt and basketball shorts. He shivers in the morning air and slumps down on the steps, getting the weight off of his injured leg.

 

He sits on the cold cement steps for what feels like an hour, silently contemplating his life and unwilling to be inside of the house at the moment. His mind eventually decides that he needs a dose of escapism to get through the day, so he spends a bit of that hour imagining what his new phone friend might look like.

 

 _Maybe he's as big as my dad_ , he muses, not knowing when he decided that the person was male, _because his voice is really deep._

 

 _Or maybe he looks like Li._ Danny snorts in laughter at his own thought, trying to imagine a forty or fifty year old Li running around in high heels and flowing dresses.

 

 _What if their even older, though? The contact did only say 'Old Friend.' They could be a professor from my parents' college_.

 

… _Maybe he's a billionaire somewhere in the middle of California, living it up in a life without ghosts,_ he thinks with both bitter and amused feelings.

 

The door behind him opens suddenly, and he almost tosses himself off of the steps to avoid the person stepping out. "Yea, sure, I'll find him before school ends, don't wor- Oh! Danny, you were out here this whole time?"

 

 _Busted._ He cringes up at his sister and wraps his arms around his still unbound chest.

 

His father's bulk takes up the door next, almost shoving the two kids off of the steps, "Danny! Your mother and I were worried that your weird friend might've taken you away again."

 

Danny snorts at the thought. That one time that Li spirited him away to uncertain adventure at 5 a.m did _not_ improve his image with Danny's parents.

 

"Nope, just… Enjoying the morning," he shivers.

 

"Well… I guess you're not going to school, right? So it's okay," Jazz muses as their father moves back into the kitchen.

 

"Yea, no way I'm-" he stops. Thinks it over.

 

 _I've already missed a week in this semester_ , he calculates, _this means if I miss any more days before the semester ends in a month, I have to bring an_ actual _doctor's note, not a parent's_.

 

He just wasn't ready for the spine-chilling terror of going to the doctor's, what with the unknown variable of his changing _(ghost boy ghost child)_ body. Even a simple check-up could result in his capture and dissection by his _scientifically insane_ parents. Staying home _at all_ was out of the question; he doesn't feel very comfortable or safe around his parents right now, especially not if they're going to leave the portal open all day.

 

"Hold on, I'm coming! Please don't leave without me, I'll be right back!" He shouts and ignores his limp in favor of pounding up the stairs. He almost knocks his laundry-doing mother over in his haste, but he makes it to his room.

 

He quickly shucks off his sleeping shirt, picking up his white binder from the pile of folded clothes ( _thanks, mom_ ) on his bed. Multitasking, he knocks a couple of random notebooks and pencils into his backpack before changing his pants to something more appropriate for the slightly chilly weather.

 

He's swished some Listerine in his mouth and is thumping back down the stairs within five minutes. Jazz looks impressed. Danny doesn't even glance at his parents and hops out the door towards his sister's car.

 

By the time they've halfway driven to school, however, Danny is freaking out with what little energy he has left.

 

"Oh, my god," he groans, "Sam and Tucker are gonna wanna _talk_ and I _don't_ wanna talk, I'm so _tired…_ "

 

"Why didn't you stay home, then?" His sister asks, but even he can tell that she's doubting her own words with a twist of her mouth. So he says nothing, rolling down the window slightly to buffer his face with cold air in an attempt to stay awake.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Danny, you need to eat something."

 

"Yeah, man, you don't look so good. Eating might keep you awake, you know?"

 

Danny groans and smashes his oily face into his folded arms. Sam and Tucker were wheedling him all morning, and they didn't even take a break at lunch.

 

 _Just leave me alone_ , he mentally shakes his fist.

 

"Come on, little man; cheer up."

 

Danny jerks his head up much too fast, causing him to list sideways in dizziness. A familiar smell reaches his nose in the form of wildflower perfume that coats the arms that come around his back to steady him.

 

"Li." He probably has a dopey smile on his face right now, but he doesn't care. Let Sam and Tucker gag.

 

"Why so glum, sugarplum?" Danny can already hear Sam making choking noises. _Whatever._

 

"Rough night, you know?" He says and bravely relaxes into his sophomore friend's side, barely acknowledging Tucker's catty 'No, we _don't_ know.' He's not really big on PDA, but right now, having the physically affectionate friend feels like heaven.

 

"Oh, so I heard," Li grins and ruffles his hair, "But how do you feel now? You look tired, _ahgi._ "

 

Danny snorts, "The dead don't need sleep."

 

Oh, wow, tell us how you _really_ feel.

 

"Uh – sorry. I'm kind of out of it right now…"

 

Li only hums in concern and plops a kiss on his injured head. There's a teacher who must've lost a bet and gotten stuck on lunch monitoring duty making his way over, but he's stopped halfway by Kwan who directs him to a kid that threw up in the corner from before-test nerves. Kwan and Li share a thumbs up.

 

Partners in crime, all the time!

 

"Um, not to interrupt your little cuddle session with _Namguhng_ ," Sam cuts in with a displeased expression, "But can we have our friend back? He really needs to eat something; he forgets to eat way too often to be healthy, and he looks like he's going to keel over any second now."

 

Li smiles, and it looks a little bit like that broken one he gave Danny on the starry hill, "Oh, of course. Don't mind me, actually – I'm just… waiting for someone, I guess." He gets a wistful look in his eyes and sighs.

 

Danny scans the room for Li's usual table. There are a few impeccably dressed sophomores and juniors there. One of them is also scanning the room, but the others appear to be in deep conversation.

 

Danny smiles up at his friend, "I don't think you'll have to wait for long. They'll come for you soon."

 

This causes a bright, happy smile to bloom on Li' face, "Thank you, Danny. I think I needed to hear that right now."

 

Sam and Tucker look both bewildered and exasperated. The purple Goth suddenly stands and announces that they're going to buy Danny a lunch before stalking off. Now Tucker just looks uncomfortable at being alone, and isn't that a concept?

 

Danny is a bit confused as to how his two friends had bridged their gap and overcome their strife without him there to help them, but he's a bit too tired to think about it right now.

 

"Li?" There's a short, round girl with bright red streaks in her brown hair standing behind the embracing duo. Li turns around and stares at her with an unreadable expression. "Will you come back to our table now? I miss you."

 

There's a few seconds of staring in which the girl twiddles her fingers before Li smiles and nods. He extracts himself from Danny and is gone with only a little wave and an excited, relieved expression.

 

Danny rolls his eyes and quirks his lips at the display. Typical Li.

 

Sam slams a lunch tray down in front of Danny with a stormy expression, "Here. Eat. Now."

 

Tucker backs away, "Whoa. What's got _your_ panties in a twist?"

 

They sneer, eyes rolling, "It's briefs today, and for some reason the only thing they had to eat was this... _desolate_ salad bar. I tried calling for a lunch official, but it looked like there was no one working today." They scowl, "Poor school, poor service."

 

The two boys peer at the lunch tray. It does, indeed, have a very leafy green salad piled in the middle, but nothing else is added to the mix. It looks like something one would feed to a farm animal.

 

"Like, _I'm_ not complaining - but when there's no other options for students who might _need more nutrition_ ," they grind their teeth at this part and stare at their thin, sleepless friend, " _that's_ when I get my briefs in a twist. Who even approved this lunch menu? Who even approved _not having anyone working in the lunch room during lunch!?_ "

 

Tucker scoots even further down the bench to escape his friend's wrath. Danny doesn't because he feels like death.

 

The dead boy (…) picks at his graciously bought salad for the entire lunch, mind and thoughts never truly focusing on whatever conversation his friends were trying to have with him.

 

He wearily ignores the cold burn that travels up and down his throat and nose every time he breathes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify; there were _two_ ghosts in Danny's house during that night. There was one in the hallway, who was pretty chill and just wandering around, maybe even tried to comfort Danny who was freaking out. Then, there was the malevolent ghost in the lab, who had only come through the portal because it sensed Danny on the other side.
> 
> Also, neither ghost shoved Danny through the floor. _Danny_ shoved Danny through the floor - he accidentally lost control of his powers and turned intangible. He doesn't know that, though, so he thinks that there was _one_ ghost who grabbed his shoulder, threw him into the lab, and tried to drag him into the portal as a late-night-ecto-snack or something.
> 
> The ghost is speaking in Esperanto. 'Ghost language' will default to Esperanto.


	13. fight me and Lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Horror, violence, slight gore, body horror, tense situations, guns, dissociation, symptoms of child abuse and PTSD

 

Danny's awakened at 5:00 a.m by the sound of his sister screaming from the other side of the hall in her room. He hears two heavy sets of feet hit the deck and start running from one room to the next.

 

He's up in a flash – literally – and then almost screaming _himself_ as his face makes contact with the rough texture of the ceiling. He can barely hold in his overwhelming panic from seeing the bright white flash so early in the morning ( _my eyes popped out I can't see I can't hear._ ) He tries his hardest to concentrate on the feeling of getting part of his cheek scraped off by the ceiling bristle and not on the weightlessness of his 'body.'

 

" _Ghost!_ " His mother screams, and there's the sound of an ecto-gun going off. Another scream from his sister, then silence.

 

Danny is busy grappling with his bed sheets (trying to pull himself down to the stationary bed and not floating towards the great unknown of his bedroom ceiling) when there are more footsteps in the hallway. This time they head straight for his door.

 

He ' _eep_ 's in fear. What the heck should he do now? Whoever walks in is going to see him flailing around like he's in an anti-gravity chamber.

 

His body flashes in light for a second time, and he's dropping to the ground with a pained shout just as his door is practically kicked open.

 

"Danny! Are you okay? Did you see the g- How did you end up on the floor? _Again?_ " Jack is suddenly standing over the groaning Danny all tangled up in bedsheets and dirty clothes with a questioning look.

 

"Oh, no reason. Just had a nightmare about the _dangerous, unattended ghost portal_ and fell out of bed," he snarks, glaring at his father like he's an idiot. Because he _is._

 

Fortunately, Jack is practically face blind, so the expression doesn't register in his mind as 'hostile – back away from the angry son.' He hoists his massive sniper gun onto his shoulder and pats it appreciatively, giving Danny a pointed look. He then walks out of the room, leaving the door wide open because he's a big _jerk._

 

Danny huffs and pulls himself back onto the bed with great effort, finally making some progress when his distinctly frazzled looking sister steps in through the open door.

 

"Why does your door look like a rhino ran into it?" She questions while maneuvering around all of the junk on his floor.

 

"That's because one _did_ ," he says bitterly, falling face-first onto the bed. He's tired, doesn't even need to be awake for another _hour_ (or something; he never looks at the clock if he has to. It gives him a sense of time, and that is detrimental to the complicated system of escapism he has created to stay marginally _sane_ ) and is still injured from his last ghost encounter.

 

Speaking of… "So; ghost?"

 

Jazz rubs the back of her neck, getting a few trembling fingers stuck in her terrible bedhead. "Yea, uh… I woke up and saw these… floating gloves? And then I noticed that there were white eyes on the wall, too. I didn't even think anything of it until it _moved._ "

 

Danny snorts, "What - you see floating clothes and eyeballs and you ' _think nothing of it_?' Really, Jazz?"

 

She makes a face. "Hey, I had just woken up. The gloves looked like something hung up on a door knob and the eyes looked like a painting! How was _I_ supposed to know it was a ghost just waiting to scare me like that?"

 

"Okay, mhm. Did the 'we can protect you just fine' parents even shoot anything or is there a hole in the wall now?"

 

"…There's a hole in the wall." She barely even tries to defend them. That's just peachy with Danny.

 

Danny laughs outwardly, but inside, he's mentally cataloguing the ghosts he's seen so far. The ghost in the lab was formless and constantly dripping noisy hissing ectoplasm. It also didn't have any hands or eyes. This could mean that the ghost that Jazz encountered _wasn't_ the one that Danny banished back into the Ghost Portal the other night.

 

His mind goes to the time before he fell to the floor into the lab, when he was standing in the hallway and a hand grabbed his shoulder temporarily.

 

 _Jazz saw a ghost with only hands and eyes_ , he considers, _does that mean that I 'saw' more than one ghost that night?_

 

"Uh, Danny? You've been awkwardly laughing for a long time now," his sister informs him with an amused smile.

 

He coughs, realizes that she's right, and _also_ notices that his throat is now incredibly dry.

 

Great. Now he has to get up and drink something before his parents think he's sick and try to keep him in a home that feels like walking on hot coals to be in.

 

Coughing lightly the whole way, Danny shuffles into the hallway to stick his mouth under the bathroom sink.

 

"Danny, that's gross! Don't drink that water – it isn't filtered!" Jazz nags him from the doorway. He continues drinking the water. Like a hooligan.

 

Even so, with his rebellious ways ( _I'm tired_ , his brain repeats), the water _does_ have an admittedly unsavory after taste to it. He currently regrets his decision to drink the nasty bathroom tap water.

 

 _Well,_ he reasons with the utmost surety his sleep-deprived mind can have, _at least no one will make me stay home now._

 

His sister stomps away and down the stairs to where their parents are in the kitchen with a call of "Stop drinking the water or you'll get _sick!_ "

 

Nonplussed, Danny ghosts down the hallway to snoop in Jaz-

 

 _You shouldn't have thought 'ghost'_ , his mind chastises him as he's suddenly hovering a few inches off of the ground.

 

 _I'm too freaking tired for this,_ he mentally groans. Surprisingly, floating down the hallway is quite easy, and requires little effort. So, he drifts his merry little way into Jazz's open door and pretends that he isn't dissociating and half-asleep.

 

He forgets that he's not touching the floor and ends up knocking himself down onto his sister's mattress like an axel. Instead of doing something about that, he just thanks his luck that he isn't flying anymore, because that's _weird_ , and dozes in the early blue light.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

There's someone petting his hair.

 

" _Mmmm… Mmm_ ssstoopppp…" He mumbles incoherently. The hand is cold and it's waking him up, which is annoying because he's still so _tired._

 

Not only that, but his body is doing that thing where he breathes only cold air. It burns his insides and shocks him into an awake state. Thankfully, none of his muscles lock up this time, so he's able to move around normally. Well, as normally as an exhausted, injured teen can in this situation.

 

Blinking blearily at the sunlight suddenly pouring in from the window ( _my window doesn't point to the East,_ he remembers with a mind still cottoned with sleep, _why am I not in my room?_ ) Danny drags himself into a sitting position. It does nothing to dislodge the hand.

 

"Seriously, Jazz, if you wanted me out of your bed you'd just have to- _AAAUUK!_ " Danny chokes on his air with a shriek and falls backward as he comes face-to-face with a pair of milky white eyeballs. _Just_ the eyeballs.

 

Danny stares up at the eyes-and-hands combo ghost and thinks about how many times he's going to fall out of bed that day.

 

His heart rate picks up as flashbacks from the night in the lab clog his brain. He can practically hear the slimy laughter, the sound of hissing ectoplasm dissolving on the harsh cold floor as he's dragged through shards of glass, the feeling of his throat being crushed, losing hope and sight and _breath..._

 

He spends so much time locked in his head that he nearly forgets the hovering specter is even there. Once he comes to his senses, he can feel that oddly calm-yet- _not_ state in which his dissociating begins and his rational thoughts end.

 

 _Better milk it while I can_ , he thinks with only half a mind. Not screaming and pissing himself at every stressful situation is so helpful sometimes…

 

"Uh… Hi?" He ventures, extremely unnerved by the still ghost.

 

It does nothing.

 

"If you're going to be haunting my sister's room then I have some complaints to make."

 

No response. Not even a flicker of the image.

 

"Okay…" he drawls, slowly sliding onto his knees and standing up. He keeps a steady gaze on the white translucent being as he makes his way out of the room by walking backwards. The ghost doesn't even react when Danny harshly collides with the door jamb and curses.

 

After a few paces into the hallway, the ghost hovers forward slightly, following Danny's moving form.

 

"No," he says like he's talking to a naughty dog and not an _ectoplasmic horror_ , "Stay. No. Back," he sticks his hand up, palm outward, to try and ward it away.

 

It vanishes.

 

…Huh.

 

He shrugs and sneaks his way further into the house, not wanting to alert anyone of his presence just in case _weird stuff_ started happening again. He knows that he's probably now slept late, and needs to get ready for school, but he makes a detour first into the bathroom to check his pants for any blood stains; both of the re-opened injury kind and the menstruation kind.

 

 _Nope_ , he mentally sighs, _looks like my cycle's all messed up. Again. Curse my anemic body and high stress levels._

 

As he's limping past the bathroom and towards his bedroom however, he gets an eerie sense of déjà vu. The lab door down the two sets of stairs is open and emitting the green roving light again, signaling that the ghost portal is functional and pouring out its ecto-energy into the immediate area.

 

He shudders, unconsciously stopping to rub his arms. He can feel the portal whispering ( _you're dead you're dead ghost boy ghost child ghost_ ) to him once more, just like the night that he was attacked by the goopy ghost that spoke in an odd language. Cold dread crawls up and down his body in the form of icy chills.

 

A puff of condensation curls in front of him. He stares at it in disbelief. There is _no way_ that it is _this cold_ in here!

 

A hand squeezes his shoulder.

 

" _Fu-_ Stop!" He spins around and flails his arms, "Don't touch me, okay? Just don't do it! I'll… give you the ghost middle finger again! You won't like it!"

 

He's shouting into an empty hallway.

 

"Danny?" It's his sister calling from downstairs. "Are you alright?"

 

"Uh, yeah, Jazz!" He runs a shaky hands through his oily hair, "Just… Getting ready for school!"

 

"…Okay. Well, hurry down, then! I'll drive you again, and I don't want to be late."

 

He whines high and frail, hopping from one foot to another. But he can't just _leave_ the ghost _here!_ He has to banish it (or _something!_ ), like he did with the last one.

 

At that thought, a heavy and cold lead settles in his stomach. His incredibly weightless stomach.

 

 _Oh, no;_ is all he can think before he finds himself dropping through the floors at a high speed. His vision is of the back of his sister's head as she puts something away in the kitchen cabinet before all he can see is green light and shiny chrome.

 

He's done dropped his dumb butt into the lab again.

 

 _Crap_ , he mentally tears his hair out strand by strand, _crap crap crap - why!?_

 

"Honey, can you pass me that wrench?"

 

"Sure thing, Maddy!"

 

"Thanks, pumpkin."

 

Oh, hell no. He dropped into the lab right where his parents are working! He doesn't have an excuse for how he got in without entering the proper security codes and going through the de-contamination device. Both make an alerting noise into the first and second levels.

 

 _And_ , he thinks desolately, _I'm not even in the proper hazmat suit. I'm_ always _in the proper hazmat suit!_

 

At that damning thought, a white light blocks his vision. It makes his parents startle and begin to turn around. Thankfully, they have the full jumpsuits on, so their peripherals are blocked by the bulky helmets.

 

He just about screams in disbelieving horror. Thinking quickly, he dives under one of the shorter metal tables littering the place, and hides behind some cardboard boxes with 'NO NOT OPEN' scrawled on the sides. He doesn't want to know why they're labelled something so cryptic.

 

Like in a nightmare, his mother strides quickly over to the table while his father still stands at his project, tinkering away.

 

 _Disappear_ , his mind is screaming, _disappear - don't look at me! I'm not here, I'm not here…_

 

Maddie shoves the boxes aside, exposing him. Danny flinches and doesn't breathe as she stares _right at him_ and…

 

Gets up to walk away.

 

Danny would let out a breath (and maybe pee himself) if he had the lungs to do it. No lungs to breathe. No heart. No limbs. No mouth no tongue no teeth no eyes _I can't feel my body I can't feel-_

 

As Danny vibrates quietly under the table in a hefty meltdown, his parents work on their projects just a few feet away. He couldn't leave even if he wanted to.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny comes to - who knows how long has passed - to the sound of Jazz's worried voice flitting down from the lab stairs.

 

"Mom? Dad? Have you seen Danny? He said he was going to school, but I can't find him anywhere."

 

"Don't worry, Jazzy-pants! I'm sure his strange, fashionable lady friend took him to school… or whatever they are." Danny resists the urge to throw something at his father's head. _Li isn't a lady!_

 

Maddie hummed at her husband's response, "I don't know, Jack – We _did_ just have a ghost attack in Jasmine's bedroom. What if he ran away again because he was so scared?" _Fashionable, yes, but not a lady!_

 

Jack laughs a little, "Nope. I made sure he was safe in his room. He was on the floor for some reason… Anyway, I showed him my new Ecto-Rifle! He shouldn't be scared now." He adjusts his helmet for better view, "Besides, I saw him asleep in Jazz's room just a half-hour ago. If he did decide to leave, he wouldn't have gotten far."

 

Maddie let's out a little 'oh.' "Well, maybe he's more comfortable than we thought, if he's sleeping in the same room as that ghost appeared."

 

Jazz taps her foot impatiently from the stairwell, brazenly having come into the lab without suiting up first. "That doesn't help me! I need to find him quickly! He can barely walk, and he hasn't eaten or gotten any proper sleep for… for who knows how long now!" There's a mumbled 'no thanks to you two,' but his parents don't seem to be able to hear it through their thick rubber suits.

 

Danny contemplates: _What even_ is _a lady?_ Right as he is also thinking: _Your priorities need to be sorted out; pay attention!_

 

"But look at our new invention!" Jack holds up some sort of square device proudly. "It's the Fenton Home Ghost Detector. Now every family can have their very own easy to use and set up detection device! The alarm sounds when there's a ghost nearby, which can be adjusted for the square footage and height of the house. Observe!"

 

He flicks a switch on the side. It gives Danny a heart attack because if he _looks_ like a ghost and sometimes he _feels_ like a ghost then does that _make him a ghost oh my god what if it does-_

 

There's a low whine of energy before the new invention sparks once, twice, and dies with a pathetic groan.

 

"Oh, rats."

 

Danny rolls his apparently invisible eyes.

 

"Mhm, yeah, that's nice dad," Jazz mocks with a bored tone. "I'm going to go call Danny's friends and see if he's with them."

 

And with that, there is one less person in the lab for Danny to worry about. He feels stiff from sitting crunched up for so long. How much time had passed since he turned _invisible_ and freaked the hell out enough to faint?

 

"I'll call Danny's cell first. Maybe he'll pick up for once."

 

Danny clutches fruitlessly at his ears. How can he hear what Jazz is saying from an _entire floor_ away?

 

And then he freezes, terror and understanding reaching his brain at the same time. What if he has his cellphone on him _right now?_ Does that sort of thing even carry over into his 'other body?' His flimsy, cardboard box cover and barely-controlled 'ghost' powers would be blown!

 

He waits in absolute mental agony for either the buzzing sound of a vibrating phone or the stupid default ringtone he's never changed to be his guillotine.

 

Several minutes pass.

 

"Ugh, Danny - why don't you ever charge your phone?"

 

 _Success._ For once his inability to do simple tasks has aided him!

 

Something odd moves in the corner of his eye, so he turns to look. His throat freezes over with cold air as he spots the white eyes-and-hands ghost apparently having a _great_ old time hovering in the corner - just _barely a few yards away from his ghost hunting parents._

 

He swishes his (still invisible – oops) hands at it and makes small whooshing noises.

 

 _Go away!_ He tries to tell it with his non-existent telepathic powers _, just leave already!_

 

It comes closer.

 

" _Oooohh nooo_ oh my god you're so stupid…" he groans softly but with as much exasperation as he can as he slaps himself in the face with a hand that he can't see.

 

"Sam? Tucker? Yes, this is Jazz, Danny's sister? I was wondering if Danny is with you right now." His sister's voice still reaches him. It makes Danny shudder with the sheer _unnatural_ feeling he gets.

 

The white ghost inches closer.

 

" _Nooooo,_ " he tries again, barely making any noise with his pitiful whispers.

 

"He's not? Oh, okay. Do you have any idea where he might be, then? I thought he was riding to school with me, but about an hour after I left him sleeping on my bed… What? Yes, he was safe being left alone in my- No, the ghost in the room disappeared… Yes, yes there was a ghost but just for, like, a second!"

 

The white ghost is reaching both creepy, thin hands out towards him now. Danny is having a very large, unstoppable cow about it.

 

" _Sssssstoopppp…_ " he hisses. It, of course, doesn't work. Typical.

 

"Why are you yelling at me? No, it didn't look like the one he described from the lab. It just… stood there. Or, you know, hovered. Like a creep. Like it was waiting for something."

 

Danny's body feels like it's doing imaginary acrobatics. If he had a heart in this form ( _bloodless breathless motionless dead dead dead_ ), it might've exploded by now.

 

The white ghost reaches him and places its hands on his shoulders with a reassuring grip. Danny barely has a single second to understand what is happening before he's abruptly being pulled up and through walls. He sees his sister standing by the front door, tapping her foot and staring at her cell phone with an annoyed face.

 

Then he's being plopped onto his bed with surprising gentleness. He looks up into the ghost's milky white eyes…

 

Only to be scared witless when the bright white light flashes in his view.

 

 _No stop please stop I'm scared I'm scared of the way this feels-_ A hand comes down upon his black, oily head to rub a soothing pattern.

 

Once again, Danny doesn't _do_ soothing.

 

" _Gah!_ " He falls off of the bed for the third goddamn time that day. He's grunting in frustration and trying to sit up with anger in his system. _This freaking ghost is getting on my nerves!_

 

"You- you! _You!_ Stop it you! You and your… your… _ghostly shenanigans!_ " He half yells – half whispers at the floating specter, "Quit dragging me through floors! This is a mess that I can't deal with, so I'm gonna spend the time that _I don't have_ blaming _you_ for all of my problems! Are you ready!?"

 

The ghost finally makes some sort of noise, but it sounds more like a soft moan or the brushing of wind against a loose window pane than any sort of communicative words that Danny has ever heard.

 

But he's so pumped up right now that Danny takes it in stride.

 

"No, no, _no!_ You don't get to make excuses right now. Why the hell did you throw me down into the lab the other night; I could've died! Been eaten by that- that _blob monster._ Have you ever had to get a blob monster out of your crazy parents' lab with just your equivalent of a ghost middle finger? _No! No, you haven't!_ "

 

He's shouting at this ashamed, puppy-eyed looking ghost and probably alerting his sister to his location, but he honestly just does _not care_ at this point. He's got a bone to pick with this floor-tossing ghost and by golly, he's going to pick it! Right now!

 

" _Blooo…_ " It makes a pitiful sounding moan. It is also gaining more of a shape; low set and narrow shoulders as well as thin, lanky arms begin to form, but are still heavily translucent and a foggy color. It has a funny egg-shaped forehead.

 

"Bloo?" He mocks, crossing his arms and staring up into the ghost's rapidly forming head, "Bloo? Is that your name or something? Well, _Bloo_ , listen up! I won't be having any more of your _nonsense._ If you're gonna haunt the halls of _my_ terrible home-life, then we're gonna have to lay down some rules first."

 

"Bloolooo…"

 

"Shush."

 

"Danny? Is that you?"

 

"Aw, crud," he slumps, fight leaving his body, "Listen, Bloo, you better go. Or, just like, disappear or something."

 

"Boobloo."

 

"Oh, really? Cool."

 

"Boo."

 

"Haha, okay, that one was pretty funny."

 

"Danny? Are you in your room?"

 

"No seriously, leave. Now."

 

"…loolo…" It disappears with a soft wave of its hand.

 

He hears his sister coming up the stairs.

 

 _Shoot_ , he panics, remembering the overheard phone conversations from before, _she thinks I snuck out at some point!_ So he throws open the window hurriedly while 'casually' beginning to lounge against his desk. To make it even more believable, he shoves only one shoe on his foot and pretends to be untying the laces.

 

"Daniel Fenton, how dare you leave so early right after a ghost attack and not tell anybody!" Jazz stands in his open doorway with her hands on her hips and her hair mussed, signaling that she had spent some time either tugging at it or running her hands through it.

 

Wincing with guilt, he puts on his best coy grin, "Sorry, Jazzy - I had to make a quick run to Li's house. He uh… broke his favorite heels? And needed a human snot rag?" Danny has _no_ _idea_ where Li lives.

 

"That's funny, because I was just on the phone with Li…"

 

"No, you weren't," he says with as much conviction as possible, "Because I was with Li and his phone never rang."

 

She gives him one of her true, patented Looks of Suspicion. "True. I don't actually have his phone number." She then flips her hair and begins to braid it, a triumphant look in her eyes, "Which is why _you're_ going to send it to me, so that this never happens again. Chop chop! We need to head to school. Thanks to you, we're _late._ "

 

She strides out of the room like she usually does when she knows she's won. Danny sighs, running a cold hand through his hair. He vents only a small amount of his immense frustration and other amalgamation of emotions by kicking over a pile of clothes on the floor. He accidentally stubs his toe on the dresser.

 

He spots a flicker of white in the corner of his room and he sibilates in pain, "This is all your fault, Bloo!"

 

The white vanishes again.

 

Danny grumbles incoherently as he wrestles his white binder on, washes his face with a rough hand, and slams the door to his sister's car.

 

He offers his sister a strained smile and says, "Ready to go to hell?"

 

She gives him a weird look and drives to school without saying anything.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Li Namguhng likes to think of himself as a pretty resourceful human (on his better days.)

 

So, when he's walking from his neighborhood into the shop district of Chinatown, intent on finding Yin and Hoa ( _not for weed,_ never _for weed - gawd mental-Danny don't look at me like that_ ) and spots a little girl being bowled the fuck over by someone distractedly neon green on a strangely shaped bike, he does the smart thing and lobs a nearby decorative _maneki-neko_ sitting innocently in someone's shop window.

 

" _Shi-bal-nom-a!_ " Because he's still practicing his Korean. Plus maybe it will get the attention of a few of his… ' _rougher_ ' Korean friends.

 

Li chokes on his own spit as he watches the poor lucky cat slide straight through the slightly translucent figure and shatter on the road.

 

What… the hell?

 

A few people stop, having seen the mysterious and mind-boggling event as well, shouting for others to notice.

 

Slowly, hauntingly, the figure turns after halting its bike at an incredible speed. Its body shape is no longer human-looking, devoid of the blurring motion that made it seem so. Its face is that of a monster (were-cat?) as it snarls at the crowd; specifically, at Li.

 

" _VI! HOMAJ!_ " Its voice is like listening to an old record about to be scratched for its last play before breaking. It inserts a heavy pressure into the air. Several people cover their ears and begin to nervously move away from the glowing green… thing.

 

Li is too busy trying to place the language the being is using. Why does that sound so familiar…?

 

" _KIEL VI AUXDACAS! MIA SPEED ESTIS PERFEKTA!_ "

 

Oh, it's Esperanto! He remembers learning it in only three months on the internet one lazy summer between foster homes. Learning more than one language makes it easier to learn others as well, after all. Too bad it's so rarely used…

 

"Haha, mia malbona, verda!" He says, causing the people around him to shout incredulously and pull at his clothes with words of encouragement. "Sed vi devus ne veturas tiel rapide. Vi batis infanon."

 

The creature gives a high, breathy, and deranged laugh, as if it couldn't believe the audacity of the human. Slow down? Slow down!? Preposterous!

 

" _HAŬTO SAKO!_ "

 

…Skin bag? How rude.

 

"Malĝentila."

 

" _KIO!?_ "

 

The being does an impressive wheelie, which is strange because no dust is kicked up. With a sound like a revving chainsaw, it immediately starts from an impossibly high speed towards the stationary Li.

 

Li doesn't even have time to scream before he's being bodily lifted and thrown in a direction that is not in the path of a raging radioactive were-cat. He gags from the force his stomach was pumped at, then looks up to smooch his savior.

 

"My hero- Oh, it's just you," he sighs in a disappointed voice, "If only a handsome fellow had come along to save me instead. I could die happy."

 

Dũng looks down at him with fury in his eyes. As per usual, he's dressed with as little as possible, and is sweating up a storm. " _Namguhng…_ " he growls threateningly.

 

It's ten times scarier than the screeching terror on a bike currently tearing up the street in attempt to turn around and have another go at Li.

 

Li sighs exaggeratedly, "Fine, fine, I get it. _Jot._ "

 

He barely has to formulate a plan before walking over to a loosely standing street sign made of cheap wood and paint. It says something in Chinese, but he can't read that language, so he just assumes that it is unimportant. Or, at least, not as important as the bullshit going on right now.

 

He rips it from the ground with little strength needed. Spinning the bright green and yellow sign over his head like a peppy school mascot, he shouts to the people left (most of them his friends and acquaintances) "Hey! Fight!"

 

And so his idiot friends all get up and shout with him, pulling random solid objects from windows and store fronts.

 

Somebody calls the police. Killjoy.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny is in third period History with Sam doing (read: staring at) a worksheet on the French Revolution when Ms. Pinheiro stands up from her desk to answer the phone. She is only speaking into the receiver momentarily before turning around and walking directly towards Danny's desk and stopping in front of it.

 

"Mr. Fenton," she intones in that wispy voice of hers, "You are being signed out at the front desk. Please collect your bag and go home."

 

Sam looks at Danny with confusion, dually noting that the nervous boy had broken out into a sweat.

 

"D-did they say w-why?" He stutters out, earning a few snickers from the people in the back row. Sam will probably beat them up later, but Danny doesn't need to know that...

 

Ms. Pinheiro shakes her head, braided locks almost hitting Danny in the face. And with that, she returns to her desk, pulling up a book about The History of Portugal, which is both ironic and sad.

 

Swallowing his rapidly rising bile, Danny carelessly shoves loose paper into his bag and slings it over his shoulder without bothering to zip it. He barely waves goodbye to Sam before he's shuffling down the hallway to his dreaded destination.

 

His mind concocts an image of his parents, suited up and carrying loads of guns and trapping devices, standing in the office acting like normal parents (as normal as the Fentons _can_ be, which isn't very.) But as soon as they get alone in the parking lot, Danny will be bound and gagged, carried down to the lab, strapped onto a cold hard table and...

 

 _They know_ , his mind locks up in anxiety, _they know that I'm not normal anymore. That I'm not_ human.

 

Still, his body moves forward, inch by inch. He has to use a different pathway than usual once he runs across a janitor hastily trying to mop away the evidence where someone had thrown up (what is with this school and barfing before every test? Was it some kind of ritual for good luck?) It really messes up his mental map, since he was planning on walking with autopilot on for the rest of the way to the office.

 

Instead, he gets lost, and has to detour to the lunchroom in order to find his bearings again. He's slightly aware that it has been more than the allotted five minutes usually given to students traversing the hallways without a hall pass saying otherwise, but he doesn't care.

 

As he's stepping close to the main cafeteria doors, his throat erupts in both fire and ice. His lungs burn with cold air, and a small, almost unnoticeable puff of water vapor slides from his open mouth.

 

_This again… I'm starting to think it's a warning or something._

 

He peeks his head inside.

 

There's a larger than normal humanoid ghost tending to the salad bar.

 

Danny whimpers on accident. It doesn't feel like being around Bloo, where his dissociating mind had tricked him into thinking that the ghost was a safe thing to be around. No, this felt more like the lab ghost that attacked him. It felt like danger.

 

The ghost turns its broad, moony face towards him and smiles with a wide, almost toothless mouth.

 

"Hello, child! Please come in if you are hungry."

 

Danny walks in because he's an idiot in a trance and cannot _believe_ that there is a ghost here, at his school, at this very minute, and _oh my god does that mean that every time I breathe cold air for seemingly no reason, it means a ghost is nearby? What does that mean? Why does that happen?_

 

As he silently freaks out, his traitorous feet bring him closer and closer to the glowing green specter. It looks like a stereotypical lunch lady dressed in a collared shirt, apron, and hair net, only about two times taller and wider. It stands (floats) a good four feet over Danny's lackluster height of 5'1".

 

"Hi there, sweetie. I'm afraid you're a little early for lunch; but I can give you a _sugar free_ cookie to tide you over until then. How does that sound, dearie?" The ghost has the creaky voice of a kindly old woman. It does nothing to shatter Danny's trance.

 

He nods once, dumbstruck and afraid. A large hand wrapped in clear plastic ( _it's real_ , he notices with distant clarity _, this ghost put on real gloves_ ) slowly lowers a small tan cookie in front of his face. He takes it with a trembling hand.

 

"There you go, sweetie. My, my – you're all skin and bones, aren't you? I'll make sure to put out extra croutons today," she laughs joyously (She? They? It?) like she's just a normal lunch lady enjoying her job, no big deal, joking with one face of many children. "Run along now, child. Come back and see me again, would you? I'll give you more cookies if you're good!"

 

Danny makes some kind of positive motion with his body and turns around, still holding the cookie up near his face, walking out of the cafeteria in a daze.

 

When he finally makes it to the office, it's to his impatient sister tugging her hair out of its previously immaculate braid and bearing down on him with a stormy face. "Where were you? I signed you out twenty minutes ago!"

 

"I… I…" he can't say it. He can't tell her that he walked into the lunchroom because he _sensed_ a _ghost_ with a power that he shouldn't have. Besides; he shouldn't derail his sister from her current thought process – that is a dangerous event that he does not wish to repeat when he's at least somewhat aware of it, "Bathroom. Period."

 

Her face softens, but only slightly. "Oh, well. Can't blame you for that. Come on – we need to hurry home. Apparently there was a ghost attack somewhere, and mom and dad called to tell me that they wanted us home for today, just in case."

 

Ghost attack? Had the portal really unleashed something damaging into the world?

 

"Ghost attack? Where?" He parrots the questions in his head.

 

She shrugs and grabs him by the shoulder strap to haul him out of the school, double speed. He struggles out of her grip somewhere in the middle of the parking lot.

 

He belatedly realizes that he's still holding the cookie in his hand. He wonders how his sister never noticed either.

 

He draws his entire body back and throws the cookie as hard as he possibly can. It sails over three entire buildings before finally falling out of view in a slowly descending arc.

 

Danny pretends he doesn't notice and gets into his sister's tiny silver car.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

_Sent at 10:30 a.m_

_TUK: Danny? Sam told me Jazz signed you out in 3_ _rd_

_TUK: is everything okay at home?_

_TUK: does this have something to do with_

…

_TUK: the "lab incident?"_

…

…

_DAN: no it's something else_

_DAN: my parents keep leaving the ghost portal open_

_DAN: and now theres been three 'ghost attacks'_

_DAN: two of them in my house_

_DAN: i don't know where the third one is but apparently its happening right now somewhere_

_DAN: and my parents are probably out there mowing people over in their big dumb rv_

_DAN: so me n jazz have been banished to the house apparently because my parents are excited for their first 'ghost fight' or whatever_

…

_TUK: I get it, bro_

_TUK: ill tell Sam_

_TUK: hopefully the school wont require a doctor's note and will just take a 'family emergency' excuse_

…

_DAN: yea thnks tuk_

 

Danny looks up, realizing he's at the house already. Quickly, he sends his last and most important text.

 

_DAN: btw lunch lady is a ghost eat with caution xoxo laterz_

_TUK: WHAT_

_Sent at 10:56 a.m_

 

The two siblings get out of the car, Jazz jangling her keys as she flips through her keyring in search of the one to the house.

 

He stops her with a stiff hand to her chest.

 

"Ow! Danny, what the he-"

 

"Shh. Look," he points up to his bedroom window, "My window is open."

 

Jazz barely takes a few seconds to ruffle his hair and scoff, "That's because _you left it open_ , dummy. Remember?"

 

…Oh yeah. Oops.

 

"Oops."

 

Still, something bad and unlucky prickles at his neck. Now used to the gut feeling being mostly accurate, he takes Jazz's dismissive attitude with a grain of salt. Someone- _or something_ \- was in the house, and Danny was nearly certain of it.

 

Jazz ignored her odd little brother as he crept around every corner of the first floor, even going so far as to check the status of the lab. Nothing _human_ had used the first door to enter or exit according to the logging system.

 

That left the second floor and the half-finished Ops Center that used to be their tiny attic. His parents had started the project a week before the finishing and unveiling of the Ghost Portal. It looked like a steampunk monster had flown over the town and taken a technological dump on their house.

 

Shaking his head to clear his wandering thoughts, Danny tiptoed up the stairs. His limp was forgotten as he ghosted ( _don't use that word_ _if you know what's good for you_ ) around the second floor. Something told him to check his room last, so he poked around in the bathroom, Jazz's room, and then his parent's room with a critical eye.

 

Finally, he eyed his slightly ajar door. His shoddy memory tells him that he had left his nearly-broken door as wide open as his window. Something wasn't right.

 

A heat (or is it cold?) spreads through his palms. He desperately pushes it to the back of his mind, just in case it's another weird-ghost-thing that he doesn't want to deal with right now.

 

He counts down in his head with a deep, quiet breath. He kicks open the door.

 

Someone screams "Don't shoot!" from their sitting position on his bed.

 

Wait… "Li!?"

 

"Danny?"

 

"Li!" He wants to jump onto his now-delinquent friend and hug him for simply being there, but stops at an odd smell permeating his previously closed room. A familiar, worrying smell…

 

"Li, is that… blood?" And ectoplasm, but Danny doesn't say that, because this can't be happening, right?

 

"Haha, _ahgi_ , listen…"

 

"Danny? Who are you talking to up there?" His sister is quickly climbing the stairs. Unlike that morning, he has no time to prepare himself or his beaten up friend for a hasty lie, so he just stands in the doorway with a surprised look and waits to accept his fate.

 

"Who is tha- _Hey!_ Who let you in, Namguhng? And why are you bleeding all over my brother's bed!?"

 

"Wh- _Jazz!_ We need to help him, regardless of why!" He defends his, frankly, scruffy looking friend.

 

"No, wait, please listen to me first!" Li suddenly shouts, standing on wobbling and torn legs barely covered with his previously bright skinny jeans, "Something _weird_ happened, outside the shops…"

 

"What?" Danny exclaims with dawning realization, "Are you saying that… you were there? At the ghost attack place?"

 

Li hesitates, but nods, "Yea, yea… So that was a ghost, huh? Rude bugger…" He contemplatively rubs his dirty chin.

 

Danny scowls, "Li – focus!"

 

"Uh, right." He shakes his head. Blood drips from his hair. Danny tries not to overrule his sister's authority and judgement of the situation and swaddle his scared friend in a blanket of gauze. "I was visiting Yin and Hoa in Chinatown, but then this… thing on a bike went past. Knocked over a little girl. I got mad and threw something at it, but the object just… faded straight through the thing like it was just a hologram.

 

"We tried to fight it with whatever we could find, but… nothing would connect. _It_ could touch _us_ , but _we_ couldn't touch _it_." He shivers, the story bringing back awful memories of the attack. He scrubs a bit of green goo from the side of his face.

 

"Well, why come here? Our parents are probably already at the scene with tons of ecto-technology that can trap and incapacitate ghosts. You should've stayed with your fighting friends!" Jazz looks heated.

 

There's a distant noise, like a bike engine revving, but it sounds odd and echoing.

 

"Oh… well… The ghost was mostly only after me, because I told it to uh… _slow down_ ," he winces, obviously remembering something horrible about the encounter. "I just had to get it away from that crowded area. Oh, please, Danny, don't be mad at me! I only wanted them to be safe…"

 

The gurgling bike becomes clearer. It sounds like it's getting closer, but at the same time, farther away with its echoing quality.

 

_No._

 

"No," he gasps out, "You didn't… not _here._ " Danny doesn't feel ready for this. He's _never_ ready for ghosts, especially not at the rate that he'd been encountering ( _and fighting_ , his mind supplies unhelpfully) these past few weeks.

 

"It follows me," he almost sobs, begging with his eyes for the two people in front of him to understand, "And only me. I couldn't lead it to anymore of my 'unable' friends… Not like that. They were all trapped there. Danny, _ahgi_ , I didn't call you Ghost Boy for a no good joke between me a Kwan. I _know_ what your parents study. And I knew that this was the only place that I could come to for help."

 

There's a sound like an unknown animal shrieking directly outside of Danny's open window.

 

" _HAŬTO SAKO!_ "

 

Li whimpers in sudden fear, falling heavily onto the bed with a strange expression uncharacteristic for his face.

 

" _ELVENU KAJ LUDU!_ "

 

There's a bout of maniacal laughter that moves through the house like a sticky wave. A green light fills the first floor, slightly reaching the second floor hallway.

 

The ghost was already inside.

 

Rushing, Danny shoves Li's head down until he is lying on the floor. "Li! See if you can fit yourself under my bed. Stay very quiet; it might not know you're here if we distract it long enough until my parents come home. Jazz: protect him, please! I know mom and dad left you with some kind of portable weapon. Use it."

 

"Danny, _Danny_ what are you doing!" Jazz is yelling at him, thankfully not following whether out of fear or from his orders, as he runs out of the room, thumping down the stairs. He doesn't care – he has one destination in mind. It's his 'only' hope, as far as anybody else knows.

 

He purposefully avoids looking too hard at the glowing green beast standing in his kitchen knocking pans off of the wall with one mighty hand-like paw. His feet make too much noise as he goes down the lab steps, but the door opening makes even more of a racket.

 

" _KIU ESTAS TIE!_ " _Crap, it noticed me._ " _HAŬTO SAKO?"_

 

Danny can practically feel the ghost following him down the lab steps as he frantically searches for a weapon. The place looks deceptively empty, most likely due to his parents hurriedly leaving and taking all experimental weapons to test on the field, but Danny knows better. There's _always_ some sort of hidden defense system _somewhere._

 

" _VI FLARAS AMUZA!" Crap, crap, crap!_

 

An alarm blares to his left. He shouts and jumps a few feet into the air. It's the failed prototype of the Fenton Defense- _whatchyamacallit._

 

"Oh, now you work!" He yells in anger right before a steel disk is impeded into the wall beside him with a shower of sparks and a piercing, grating _thunk._ He jumps sideways from the thrown weapon even though it had already cleared him, slashing a bloody line down the side of his face and leaving slight burn marks where the immense amount of close-proximity sparks touched his skin.

 

He looks up from his position sprawled on the floor to see a bipedal feline looking ghost with several sharp bike wheels strapped to its back. It's grinning, feral, down at the fallen human with glowing ecto-drool dripping down its furry chin.

 

" _VI FLARAS BONA!_ "

 

" _No no no stop stay away!_ " He's screeching and tearing his throat again, scrambling backwards from the advancing ectoplasmic being. It only grins more.

 

"Oh, you speak English, flesh? THAT IS AMUSING! SO DO I!" It shouts at him, drawing another sharp wheel from its back.

 

Desperate and backed into a corner, Danny weeps with breathlessness and pain clogging his injured throat, " _Jazz! Li! Help, please, help!_ "

 

He hears a faint cry of " _Danny!_ " somewhere above him, but it doesn't come fast enough.

 

The feline ghost bends its arm back and sideways, hurling the blade free with a speed almost impossible to follow.

 

Danny only has time to flinch and close his eyes before a blinding light flashes.

 

There is a hiss and a yowl, the noise of metal clattering to the floor and possibly breaking prototype inventions reaching his ears.

 

His eyes slowly creep open, barely daring to look in fear of a gory mess; in fear of feeling like being inside the portal again. _Am I dead?_

 

 _Yes_ , his mind whispers sarcastically, _and it is a good thing._

 

He looks down at his chest. His slightly translucent, broad black-covered chest with a steel wheel sticking out of it.

 

" _Augh!_ " He yells, falling sideways with alarm. He watches in amazement as the wheel flows _through_ his torso and then his arm, never once leaving any damage. A few seconds after, his body is no longer looking slightly see-through. Danny can feel a very distinct difference between being translucent and not, but he doesn't have the time to analyze it.

 

Right now, he has to banish the cowering cat-ghost back to the Ghost Portal.

 

Steeling his nerves, he stands, pulling his shoulders back and his eyebrows down, trying to paint an imposing figure.

 

The ectoplasmic horror is crouched inside of a cabinet that has had its door violently torn off, the metal plate somewhere bent and discarded on the floor.

 

It hisses and growls as he sticks his hand, palm forward, up and towards its face. "Now, move."

 

"NO!" It yowls, "NO! YOU THING! HYBRID! DIRTY _HALFA_ SHIT!"

 

Wow, that was _not_ what Danny was expecting. Still… "Move, now, or else." His palms feel kind of funny again, like when he was hovering outside of his bedroom door earlier. He lets it come. It feels right this time.

 

He becomes incredibly concerned when his hand begins to emit green vapor, but there's just something about not having a functioning neural system that makes it all tolerable.

 

When the specter still refuses to move from its spitting spot, Danny tries something different. He shoves his palm forward like he's tossing a ball back to someone, or like he's waving the middle finger around for a particularly nasty non-verbal insult.

 

A green plasma ball shoots out of his hand with barely a warning, the high whining of its ecto-energy following it as it travels across the room and slams into the adversary, causing a small explosion and leaving black marks on the metal from the heat.

 

It screams in agony, stumbling from the cabinet with its arm and half of its face missing. Ectoplasm drips viscously to the floor in hissing sheets.

 

Danny is scared out of his ghost transformation by the sheer volume, causing him to fall to the floor in near exhaustion. He barely notes the white flash that accompanies his switch from 'ghost' to human. Right now he's more concerned with getting away from the enraged manifestation of ectoplasm.

 

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" It shouts as it knocks a _bolted-down_ table to its side, uprooting some of the metal tiles that make up the floor. "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO MAINTAIN THIS FORM!? HOW MANY YEARS OF ECTO-CONSUMPTION I WENT THROUGH!?"

 

Danny uses what's left of his strength to climb to his feet and bolt from the limping enemy, grabbing a small but still conveniently visible cube-like invention on his way out of the lab.

 

 _This better do something!_ He curses in his head as he can't find a proper button to turn it on, whatever 'it' even is.

 

" **C̷O͏͞M͏E ̨̨͘B͞AC͞͝K̷̡ ̢͝H͢͠E͜R͞E!** "

 

Danny yelps at the increased pressure inserting itself into his head. It feels like the previous lab ghost trying to toss him around with wind again, but instead this time there is a loud, piercing noise in his head that won't go away.

 

He hears twin shouts of distress from upstairs, letting him know that the other two people hiding in the house were feeling the same as he was. Now he knows why no one could come and aid him in the lab – they were probably feeling even worse effects than his weird switching body was.

 

He doesn't bother trying to shut and lock the lab door as he escapes up the stairs, knowing now that ghosts can fade through any surface not specifically ghost-proofed.

 

As he's running blindly from the kitchen to the living room, hoping that circling the house a few times would confuse his pursuer and also give him enough time to open the thing in his hand ( _god I hope it isn't just a block of cheese encased in metal – dad seems like just the person to do something like that_ ) the phone rings.

 

And he answers it because _what the hey_ , he's right next to the darn thing. He's also secretly hoping it's his parents.

 

"H-h-hello?" He's breathing ragged and can barely hear through his pumping blood and increased supernatural head pressure. He has _got_ to figure out what makes those two malevolent ghosts have 'special abilities' like wind or… headaches? _Whatever._

 

"Daniel?"

 

"Oh, hi there phone friend. Listen, I'm kind of busy right now-"

 

" **W̨͘H̀͝Ę͞ŔÈ̛̕ ͢A̧͜RȨ́͢ ̵YO̴̧U̡,͏ ̴̨S͡K͞I̴N̢ F͢ILT̕H͟͢͏?** " Another notch on the pressure scale.

 

"-so maybe you can call back later?"

 

"Daniel, what is that shouting? Are you alright?"

 

Danny looks behind him. The green glow is creeping closer and the headache he is developing is encroaching on all of his senses.

 

" **Y҉͢҉O̷͡U̷͝ ̛̛S̢M͏Ę͟͠L͢͟L F͘͞ƯNN҉̴̴Y̡ -̀͞͡ Y̸ÓU ͞C͘͢͝A̛N̶̨'͞T̵ ͘HÍDE҉!** " His head is going to burst.

 

"Oh, you know, nothing much, just having a ghost attack."

 

"Ghost attack!?"

 

"Yeah, real spooky. So, um, phone friend guy-"

 

A loud crash comes from the kitchen. What is _with_ this ghost and destroying all of the cabinets in the house?

 

"-have my parents ever described how to operate a small, metal cube invention to you, by any chance?"

 

" **C̨̛OM̸͝E ͠ÒU̸͘͝Ţ ̀͢͞A̛͡N̷͞D́̀ ̶̢P͜͝L̕AY̡͝͠ ̶A҉̡L̛R͏E͞҉̶A̛͘D͡Y̴͝!** " He can only imagine the pain of the others' right now.

 

"Because it's kind of my only hope right now and if not then I need to hang up and go die."

 

Another crash, this time with a yowl of pain and a curse in that weird, English/Spanish/German language.

 

"Listen carefully – you sound like you have no time to spare. There is a small corner of the cube that is a slightly different shade than the rest. You must dig your fingernail underneath it; it will activate within ten seconds. It acts as a grenade, so toss it directly and surely at the ghost. Do you understand, Daniel?"

 

"Yup, great, thanks, I gotta go though sorry we keep meeting like this b-" the phone is crushed with a big glowing paw. He can't hold back a scream at the gooey, angry green face that towers threateningly over his shoulder. Some of the ectoplasm drips onto his shoulder, burning through the shirt and eating away at his human flesh.

 

Without turning around to look, he quickly shimmies away from where the ghost was practically vibrating with anger and swinging its remaining arm wildly, splattering poisonous green goo all over the room. Danny digs what is left of his bitten fingernails into the weirdest colored corner, causing a well of blood to emerge from under his abused nail.

 

He barely counts down a hasty _1… 2… 3… 4 5 6!_ Before he's tossing the cube with a yelp and closing his eyes like a scared idiot who can't listen to clear and concise instructions.

 

It sinks into the beast's festering ectoplasmic skin and dissolves. It screeches in dismay as a contained but powerful puff of air explodes from its shoulder. A green light encases it in a cube-like structure within a blink of an eye.

 

The glowing and deadly influence from the powerful, teeming ghost fades around the house, as does the sharp noise and nearly debilitating headache.

 

Danny successfully caught the ghost. And nobody died (permanently.)

 

_Great…_

 

_Nice…_

 

_100%_

 

_Awesome..._

 

Danny collapses onto the floor in exhaustion. He looks over at the trapped ghost, examining the pulsating force-field with curious but delirious eyes.

 

The ectoplasmic horror stares back at him with one wild eye rolling in its crushed and partially formed head.

 

"Yea, whatever buddy. You brought this on yourself. Just be lucky I didn't have any more of those ecto-ball-things up my sleeve when I needed them," he yawns, absentmindedly scratching a weak hand through his sizzling wounds and leaning back against the couch. Several pieces of the broken phone rain down onto his head, but he pays them no mind.

 

He barely hears two sets of feet come running down the stairs, nor his name being called by Jazz and Li. A pair of arms lift him into the air, and he holds on tight to the feeling of safety and warmth. A familiar hand cards through his hair, whispering apologies and sweet nothings as a wet rag wipes off the bloody injuries he'd either re-opened or sustained during his stressful fight.

 

Danny slept, peaceful, for at least a little while.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Um…" A nervous Tucker toes his carpeted bedroom floor with socked feet. His room hadn't been cleaned in a while, but it was still quite acceptable in terms of cleanliness, especially for a teenager. "Come… on in?"

 

Sam pops their blue spearmint gum and allows their gaze to wander critically over their current environment.

 

"Thanks," they say succinctly before plopping themselves down onto the bed. Tucker breaks out into a hot sweat at the boldness of his friend.

 

 _Just play it cool Foley_ , he encourages himself, _this is normal. Having a friend over is… normal._

 

"So… Danny?" He begins, sliding himself into his cushioned computer seat. It had to be, given how much time he spent sitting in front of his three monitors for hours on end.

 

Sam nods and leans back on their arms, exposing their thick white throat and black choker collar. "We need to get in contact with him more often. I know it'll be hard, but we have got to keep up a communicating relationship."

 

Tucker's mind stutters a little on the word 'relationship', images of three teens holding hands and going to the movies or the beach or each other's houses fog up his thoughts.

 

It's only a large hand with black pointed nails that snaps him out of his daydreaming. Literally, Sam is snapping her fingers in his face.

 

"Um, hello? Earth to Techno-Tuk, can you read me?"

 

"Yeah, I got'cha. We need to insert ourselves forcefully into his life. _Back into_ his life. He needs to know that we're there for him, even after the… 'Lab incident."

 

Both teens fall silent in solemn contemplation. They vividly remember the vision of Danny tripping, pressing the button, and his gut-wrenching scream as he disappeared into the light of the portal. They had been thrown back so hard that they were forced to stay on the floor until the portal had finished powering up. Danny was even thrown out, new and unusual, before they could find the strength to fight against the energy pouring out and stand up to aid their friend.

 

"He looked like a ghost." Tucker says bluntly. Sam nods in acquiescence. They had agreed that there was something supernatural about Danny in that new dead-looking form. They just couldn't decide what. Not without spending more time with Danny.

 

"He… might actually _be_ a ghost. Have you thought of that? That maybe he's really just… a zombie or something? Come back to life because he can't accept his sudden death?" Sam is looking at the ceiling with furrowed brows, the only telltale sign of her distress.

 

"No, let's not think of that now. Let's just think of him as… Danny," Tucker says hurriedly. Neither of them want to think about Danny being gone.

 

Tucker wouldn't survive without his short, cynical, and sarcastic Danny existing in his life every day. He just couldn't. And he hopes that Sam, however new of a friend, feels the same way.

 

"Together," Sam mumbles suddenly, "We can work together. To figure out what happened, and to protect Danny from… whatever is going on in his life right now."

 

"Right," Tucker nods, "Friends?" He holds his hand up to be shaken.

 

"Friends." Sam grabs his hand and pumps it up and down a few times. Then holds it there.

 

They hold hands in silence.

 


	14. symptom sympathizer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Mentions of self-harm, descriptions of wounds, hallucinations, slight gore and body horror, child abuse and neglect

 

"Hey, Jazz, we were just wanting to talk to Danny, since his phone is off aga- _What the hell do you mean he's been kidnapped by Namguhng and a strange man on a scooter and you can't find him?"_

 

Sam looks like she's about ready to slam the phone onto the ground and relish the shattered pieces it would make. Tucker wants to plead with her that it's new, bought with his own allowance savings, and modified heavily for the past three nights straight - but he doesn't, both because he has learned some preservation skills around the large goth and because he cares a lot more about Danny than his new gadget.

 

…But don't tell Danny that.

 

"A ghost! He fought _another_ ghost!? Where the fuck were you? Where the fuck were his shitty parents? Why doesn't anybody in your fuckdamn house look after that kid – oh, _now_ you're telling me he's injured, too?"

 

 _Hoo boy_ , Tucker sweats nervously, _I'm glad they don't yell at me like that anymore._

 

"Don't tell me to calm down, sweet-cheeks; I'll calm down when I damn well feel like it." The white teen pulls out some kind of butterfly knife from nowhere and starts flipping it around expertly. Tucker doesn't know if he should feel safe or threatened.

 

"So, you're excuse is that this 'headache ghost', as you put it, was so loud that you couldn't help your _screaming, begging little brother_ but he could trap the ghost in a magic box _all by himself!?_ " Sam throws their arm out, imbedding their slick silver knife into the wall above Tucker's head.

 

Tucker feels his soul leave his body.

 

"Alright, alright, I got'cha. A- _huh._ No, we don't need your help, we can track him just fine!" And with that, Sam testily jabs a finger to shut off the phone and, subsequently, end the conversation.

 

The boy swallows, hesitantly stepping forward, "Sam…?"

 

She whirls towards him with a red face and angry eyes, "What, _Foley!?"_

 

Oh, jeez, "Don't you think we should've tried to get Namguhng's number from her first?"

 

"No. You know why? Because we can find Danny just fine without their help." They huff and cross their thick arms, looking their black friend up and down with interest, "And I think I know just how we're gonna do it. Come on, techno-Tuk, show me what you've got."

 

Oh, so this is how it's going to be.

 

Techno-Tuk smirks with bravado that he doesn't feel, "You got it, Samhain." Samhain looks pleased at the new nickname. He reminds himself to tell it to Danny later… when he isn't possibly dying and being kidnapped by two people in a shady street alley somewhere.

 

…That is an _incredibly familiar_ chain of events he just thought of.

 

The two teens crowd around Tucker's computer desk, one sitting in the chair and the other blocking the person in with their craned body. Tucker tries not to sweat too badly as he feels Sam breathing harshly on the back of his neck.

 

He explains how he's going to do it to a confident looking Sam. Only turning on one monitor, seeing as this was just a small 'hack and grab', as he liked to call it, where he would use the information he'd sneakily jacked off of the unsuspecting Danny's phone just a few weeks ago –

 

"You did _what_ to Danny's phone?" Sam raises their eyebrows, impressed. "So, could you put a tracking device on his -"

 

"Don't even think about it, Sam; that's illegal."

 

"… _You're_ illegal…" They mutter about 'ungrateful geeks.'

 

Tucker rolls his eyes and renews his search, trying his best to pinpoint the number he is looking for. Danny was known for changing people's contact names in his phone, but not their display names for their shared messaging service, so sometimes it was hard to tell who's who.

 

"Salty? Sweet? Who the heck are they?" Sam squints at the screen, eyes apparently adept enough to be able to pick specific words out of the wall of text. She also had enough knowledge of coding itself to be able to tell when and where the contact names would pop up. "Man, I wonder if that's us."

 

"Okay, but… Who's salty and who's sweet?" Tucker scrunches up his face in thought.

 

They share a bout of pensive silence.

 

"I'm probably salty." "I'm _totes_ salty."

 

They stare at each other with wide, blinking eyes.

 

Sam sighs, "Okay, so maybe it's not us. I hope those aren't stripper names or something…"

 

Tucker snorts, catching on to the Goth's trail of thought, "You know that Namguhng isn't _actually_ a stripper, right? We just call him that because… well…"

 

"Because he looks damn fine and monopolizes all of Danny's time whenever he wants to and gets away with it because Danny has a big gay crush on him?" Sam fills in the rest, apparently just as peeved as Tucker is, "Yeah. I know the feeling."

 

The techno-geek sighs and turns back to his monitor, "Let's just get this over with. Oh! You know what, I think I've just got it…"

 

Sam makes an interested noise from behind him and leans even closer. He shunts his _Gay Feelings_ of _Doom_ into the corner of his mind.

 

"There, see? This correlates to this, and…"

 

Namguhng was shockingly and unexpectedly named 'Doctor Hands On' in Danny's phone.

 

"I'm gonna castrate Namguhng." Sam growls, claws digging into her friend's shoulder harshly.

 

He had to admit, 'Doctor Hands On' was a pretty odd and dubious name for Danny to put as Namguhng's contact info. What in the world did it mean? Does this mean that they touch a lot? Well, of course they do, Namguhng practically drapes himself all over their small friend.

 

"Let's… not jump to conclusions," Tucker says haltingly. He couldn't deny that his thoughts had gone the same route as Sam's had, but… To think of Danny and Namguhng like _that_ was just messing up his worldview. "And maybe I should use the phone this time – no offense. He'd probably just hang up on you. I think he secretly goes off and cries every time you talk to him."

 

Sam grits out a 'fine', slaps the phone down onto the table, then stomps over to Tucker's bed to sit down, "Call 'Doctor Hands On' then. But make sure to send him my… _regards._ "

 

Tucker gulps and dials the blue highlighted number on his screen. _I'm never getting on their bad side ever again._

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Waking up is one of the worst decisions Danny has ever made, in his not-so-humble opinion, and this is punctuated by his groans of agony.

 

He can feel every piece of skin on his shoulders, arms, neck, and face where either fire-hot sparks had caught him or burning ectoplasm had dripped from the destabilizing bike-cat ghost (Danny starts to call it Zippy-Doo-Da in his head. It fits perfectly.) His leg feels like it's been tugged out of its socket again and his throat isn't much better. He doesn't remember screaming himself hoarse like he had with the wind ghost (Slippery Tornado… nah, he needs to think of a better one later) but he must've done enough to re-instate his pain.

 

Even worse – his right cheek is puckered and pinched with a long swipe of plaster. He wonders what the hell happened there.

 

 _Oh yeah_ , he remembers with a full-body shiver, _Zippy-Doo-Da threw a razor bike wheel at my face._

 

Great. It's probably going to scar ( _but nothing else has scarred_ , his mind whispers, _stop thinking of yourself as normal. It's over._ )

 

Overdue in his observations, Danny begins to notice that he is not in an immediately recognizable spot. Whenever he has gotten hurt before ( _before_ , his mind snipes, _before you would only have scrapes on your knees! This is madness - you're going to get killed this way!)_ someone would always lead him to the living room couch with a small health kit to fix up his wounds. Now, it doesn't even look like he's in his own house anymore.

 

_So, where am I then? No one has come by since I've woken up…_

 

In fact, this place looks somewhat familiar the more he looks around. Especially the window; the scene outside looks like the residential district of Chinatown.

 

 _It can't be Li's house_ , he muses, _I don't think he lives in Chinatown. At least, not anymore, maybe he did once…_

 

He adjusts his body slightly on the fold-out bed of the couch that points towards the open window. He appears to be dressed in light green jogging pants and an incredibly large black t-shirt. There is also, strangely, a weighted blanket folded over his torso, and _only_ his torso.

 

It only takes him a few seconds of shifting around to figure out why.

 

 _My binder!_ He panics _, it's gone! Who took my binder off? Why did they change my clothing? Who touched me when I wasn't awake!?_

 

Toeing the line between filling himself with disgusted rage and panicking with harried sobs of violation, someone with bare feet and heavy, steady footfalls enters the room at a slow pace.

 

Danny locks up, unable to lift his body due to pain and see over the side of the couch to the open doorway to identify the unknown person.

 

Shaking with bone-deep trepidation, Danny waits for his (savior? Kidnapper?) unrevealed host to come within his limited field of vision.

 

The life is shocked out of him as Dũng, the Vietnamese man who chased him across Chinatown after a failed (?) prank with Li and Kwan, steps in front of the couch. His arms are both loose at his sides and his palms are open, showing that he is holding nothing.

 

Overall, it is a very non-threatening position from the muscular man.

 

Predictably, Danny starts crying.

 

While Dũng looks incredibly confused at the small child's reaction to his entrance, a shout comes from the other room of the apartment.

 

"Dũng! Why did you make him cry?" Suddenly, a very beaten up looking Li is swooping down onto the couch to gently cradle his friend's head. He turns his mouth towards the flabbergasted looking man, "I told you that he's delicate, didn't I? Did you come stomping in here with those angry eyebrows of yours?"

 

Dũng blinks and doesn't respond, only waving his lax arms around slightly as if saying 'What did I do wrong?'

 

"W-where's m-my bin… binder?" Danny sobs, "W-who touched me? Who _touched_ me!?"

 

"Shh, _ahgi_ , I did. It's okay, it was me, no one else touched you," he coos and rubs his bandaged hands through his frightened friend's hair, "I'm sorry, but we had to clean your wounds. And… well… Your binder sort of got… ruined."

 

Danny sniffs a few times, looking up into the guilty, bruised face of Li, "What? But that was my last one!" _And how am I gonna walk out of here without it on? I can't deal with this – I'm too broken for this right now. How much bullshit can happen in one day! In one week, even…_

 

Li sighs, "I know, little man, I know. I wish we had a binder here to give you, but no one binds in this apartment."

 

Danny tilts his head back against the thin pillow behind him and tries to breathe a bit more deeply. He's not sure if it's working.

 

 _This is so messed up…_ Wait.

 

"Why am I here? Like, I know that I accidentally led a dangerous ghost rampaging through my house, but I didn't do too badly, right? The house is still standing last I remember. Where's Jazz?"

 

Li pats his head one more time before standing, "Jazz is fine, Danny. She's just uh… a little bit displeased with me right now. So... When your parents came running into the house with guns drawn and yelling about getting a call saying there was screaming in the house, I kind of uh… Took you to a 'safer' place than that madhouse."

 

Danny blinks, incredulous. "You _kidnapped_ me. Right after a ghost fight. _In front of my parents!?"_

 

Li laughs nervously and rubs the back of his neck, "Weeell… They didn't actually… _see_ me take you? I think your sister might've fainted when I loaded you onto the scooter and drove off, though. Haha… ha…"

 

"Li. My parents are going to nail your severed head to the wall," Danny states bluntly.

 

The culpable delinquent slumps dramatically, sighing out an "I know, I messed up. _Again._ "

 

Danny clicks his teeth in disparagement, "Yup. You're as good as toast, you know. Zippy-Doo-Da destroyed the house phone, and I'm pretty sure I didn't have my phone on me when I went to uh…" He can't really say 'fight the ghost', because as far as anyone else can tell, he just danced around, screamed a lot, destroyed _everything_ in the process, and tricked it into being captured in a cube.

 

But Li nods in understanding anyway, not even questioning the odd name Danny dropped, "Yeah, I know. I saw it when I was giving your family the slip. I have a cellphone, but all I know is your cell number, and that won't help us much now…"

 

"Oh," Danny says, remembering something from an earlier, sort-of-less-hectic part of the day, "I gave Jazz your number. Sorry - I used you as an excuse for why I disappeared that morning."

 

Realizing his slip a little bit too late, Danny braces himself as Li looks down at him sharply, "Disappeared? Why did you disappear? Did you sneak out or something?"

 

"Uhh… Yeah. No big deal. Just wanted an hour or two to myself," he hastily replies, fingers fiddling with the loose strands coming off of the weighted blanket. Lying to everyone about his 'non-human status' (something in his head drives a blunt object through his ribs) was _really_ getting out of hand.

 

Li narrows his (for once makeup-less) dark almond shaped eyes at him. Danny grins – it probably makes him look like he's had the joy of being stabbed in the leg with how strained it is.

 

"Mhm, anyway, they have no idea where we are, so you can have as many 'hours to yourself' as you'd like. _I'm_ certainly not walking you home when your parents have _that many guns_ ," Li places a hand to his chest and throws his head back at the memory.

 

Danny scrunches his face in confusion. "Okay, that's fine, but how did we get here so fast? I remember it takes a good few hours to walk from my house to here."

 

Li shuffles his feet, looking embarrassed, "Oh, well, you know, I just… Called up my big bro for some help. Nothing a ripped, shirtless Asian dude can't do with a scooter that only goes forty miles per hour. Isn't that right, Dũng?" Li was making sure that his face could be seen by the man lounging at the window at all angles, which strikes Danny as being fairly odd. Could Dũng not hear very well?

 

…Back the hell up.

 

"Wait, 'big bro?' He's your brother!?" Danny points a hand at the impactful Vovinam user, regretting it spectacularly when pain flares up from his extremely red and burnt shoulder, _holy cow_ how did he _not notice that_ wound before? It looks like Antarctica!

 

"Yup! We once shared a foster home here in Chinatown, but I was moved to a different home when he became an emancipated minor. He just can't get rid of me, though." Li waggles his fingers at the subject of their conversation, batting short eyelashes with a smirk.

 

Dũng grunts in affirmation, staring intently at Danny's mouth as he does so. Danny feels a little unnerved with the intense concentration on the man's seemingly constantly angry-set face, but that is whisked away when he spots a pair of hearing aids on the counter.

 

"Little man," the Vietnamese man rumbles out, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forward, "You'll be safe here, I think. Namguhng is a _thằng ngốc_ , most of the time - but what has hurt you is gone now."

 

… _That's reassuring, I guess? Even if it's from someone who has virtually no idea about the depth of my ghost problems._

 

"Oh, big brother, you can't see how his name is said, can you?" So Li walks over to Dũng and begins to sign. Danny can tell it is American Sign Language because he had taken it as an extra class once in sixth grade. Due to a lab malfunction that Danny had been the victim of, he lost his hearing for an entire month. The less said about that 'incident', however, the better. It was fairly traumatizing, and left him unable to walk straight for _longer_ than the soundless month.

 

After only a few moments of hand and mouth movements, Li straightens up and moves away. Dũng nods his head once before turning back to Danny, a sort of light in his eyes as he understood the person's name, "Dan."

 

"Ah, well… Close enough, I suppose." Li tosses one hand up and crosses the other over his waist.

 

"Dan," he says again, "You can use this _chàng ngốc_ phone to call your parents." As he says the foreign phrase, he motions a hand towards the hovering Li. Li doesn't even look phased at the obvious insult, only shrugging slightly with a frown and pulling out him slim purple cell with a dangling monkey charm.

 

Danny nods, but has to quickly rethink his path as he winces, "Uh, about that… I don't remember either of their cell phone numbers…" It was true; he'd relied so heavily on his pre-dialed contact list that he had never bothered to learn anyone's number. If it was a particularly bad day, Danny couldn't even remember his home phone number.

 

Dũng shakes his head and climbs to his feet from the window sill, "Kids."

 

With that single word, he's stomping to the next room, one hand scratching at his stomach under his tank top. Li laughs nervously, dancing from foot to foot and waving at his brother's back as if the farewell could be seen.

 

When the older male is completely gone and out of sight, Li flings himself onto the fold out bed with a wail of emotion, caging his resting friend in with his long limbs, "Danny!"

 

Danny squeals as his wounds are jostled, spitting out some of the long brown hair that got into his mouth, " _Ow_ , Li! What!?"

 

"Dann- _yyyyyy…_ " he buries his face into the spot right next to the burnt shoulder, sobbing into the springy mattress and gripping the pillow with both of his hands on either side of Danny's head, "I thought you _diiiiiieeeed!_ "

 

"Oh, um…" Danny tries not to push the crying teen off and away in a fit of uncomfortable jitters as he lies stiffly underneath him. Thankfully, no part of Li is touching Danny, but he still feels uneasy in such a close position.

 

" _Uuuugh_ – I never should've tried to get your parents to deal with that ghost! I had no idea they were already on their way, _ahgi_ , oh I'm so sorry, I'm _sosososo_ so _stupid_ and _useless_ and I-I'm not worth anything and you should've just let me _die_ and-" a great heaving gasp and sob is pulled from the melting boy.

 

Danny honestly doesn't have the emotional capacity for this right now, but he tries anyway. "Li, Li! You're not worthless or stupid or anything like that. You're smart! Most people wouldn't even think to come to us first, especially not when we were hours away by feet, which you _ran_ , just so that no one would get hurt anymore. You even kept going once you realized it was following you.

 

"So – you're not stupid, Li, you're brave! Nobody else could've done what you did."

 

Li takes a single shuddering breath and abruptly halts his crying. He stays crouched over Danny with his face buried next to his injured shoulder, barely making any noise aside from his freakishly calm breathing. Danny quivers as pain he's tried to ignore so far wracks his body in small waves.

 

This is a weird situation.

 

"I wanna touch you," Li mumbles almost petulantly through the fabric of the mattress.

 

"Uh, please don't. Painful." Danny replies, face scrunching up in involuntary discomfort. Who knew burnt skin could be so distracting?

 

A sigh, "I know."

 

A cold, slim nose is placed very gently onto the side of his face, near his ear. It causes a little shiver to go through his tense frame, further irritating the wounds that stretch onto his back.

 

'Dancing Queen' interrupts their somewhat tender moment, its origin from Li's abandoned phone on the floor.

 

" _You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life;_

_See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen."_

 

Li groans into his ear, rattling his head fluids and making his back muscles spasm. In retaliation, he blows air into _Li's_ ear, "You're not even seventeen yet, you liar."

 

His sixteen-year-old friend giggles and rubs the side of his head onto the mattress to try and rid his ear of its tickles, "I know. Ugh, it's probably your sister, isn't it?"

 

"Yup. Time to face the music, _Namguhng_ ," he teases, squirming a little bit as Li's hair drags across his exposed collar bone, the teen finally having sat up and away from Danny's face. He holds in a relieved sigh.

 

 _Man,_ he thinks, _never knew I was that_ squicky _about being close to other people._ His platonic crush on Li didn't soften the reaction of intense skin crawling at all. Maybe that's why his stomach squirms every time Sam or Tucker holds his hand?

 

The slouchy dressed and bandaged Korean American bends over from his position sitting near Danny's knees and gingerly clutches the offensively singing item in one hand, expression of apprehension clear on his face. "Do I haf'ta answer it?"

 

Danny nods deeply once, staring his evasive friend in the face.

 

Li sighs and presses the green 'Answer' button with one finger, " _Ahn-nyeong-ha-sae-yo…_ " He says his most formal greeting with a wobbling voice, hand raised to the side of his face like he's about to ward off an invisible blow.

 

There's a few long seconds where nothing but incomprehensible screaming is heard from the other end. Li pulls the phone away from his face with a dead expression.

 

"It's for you." He holds the phone out to Danny, voice serious.

 

 _Ugh_ , Danny mentally rolls his eyes, _I should've seen this coming. Li is so flimsy at times it's unbelievable._

 

But he grabs the phone anyway, slowly putting it up quite a ways away from his ear, even further than when he had used the house phone and discovered that his hearing had been modified by his… transformations.

 

"Hello?" _Better play it cool, Danny; be so cool they'll think that you were never at the scene of the crime in the first place…_

 

" _Daniel Fenton_ you get your butt home right this instant! I will not have you frolicking around with your _questionable friend_ when there's been a ghost wreaking havoc all over town!"

 

His sister and his mother both sound so alike when they yell that he can't tell who it is that's called the phone. Was it Jazz, or his mother using Jazz's phone? "I- well- I can't tell who you are, please stop yelling at me; I'm somewhere safe, I promise."

 

"Do you have any idea what it was like for your father and I, getting a phone call from someone who is _all the way in Wisconsin_ while we're in the middle of a ghost investigation, telling us that he knows that our son is battling a ghost in our house – _alone_ \- without any protection except a _prototype_ from almost _twenty years ago!?_ " Okay, definitely his mother then.

 

"I- I know, listen, I was _there_ \- I'm sorry, mom, but-"

 

"No, Daniel, this is much too dangerous for you right now! Who knows what other ghosts are out there, just waiting to terrorize Amity Park and breed other ghosts from their fear?"

 

Danny breathes in deeply, choking slightly on the lingering pain of his throat, "I get it, please don't start with the 'the ghosts will bring about the apocalypse' speech again. It really is not needed at this point – trust me."

 

His mother makes a noise of pure rage and frustration. There's a crashing noise. Danny thinks she might've just thrown the phone and broken a window.

 

Instead, his father is the next to speak. "Great job on capturing your very first ghost, kiddo!"

 

 _Oh father_ , he scoffs bitterly, _if only you knew._

 

"But your mother seems to be tearing apart the Fenton RV with her bare hands! Wow! You go, honey badger! …Please come home she is _terrifying._ " There's another crashing noise. The sound of his father's distant yelling is heard.

 

Danny concludes that his mother had leapt upon his father like a lion to a wildebeest and tore her prey apart with her teeth. Poor sap; what a way to die.

 

"Danny?" A breathless question is asked, "Are you okay?"

 

"Jazz! What about you?" He looks over at Li, who has been silent for the entire conversation. He is staring blankly out the open window, eyes tracking a few pigeons as they fly in the orange light of the setting sun. His mien is unreadable.

 

"I'm… fine."

 

"That sure sounds like a lie. Are you even _trying_ to tell the truth?" He furrows his brow and attempts to sit up, feeling a bit more energized when he thinks about how badly the attack must have affected his sister, who had seen her first ghost just that same morning.

 

Jazz sighs at her unanswered question, and it crackles over the speaker like walking on dry snow, "Yes, don't worry about me. I'm not the one who took on a ghost _single-handedly_ , after all."

 

He is reminded of this fact when his burned and aching body erupts in pain as he attempts to sit up. Involuntary grunts let out as he maneuvers himself next to Li.

 

"Danny? Are you in pain?"

 

Ugh, he _so_ does not want to have this conversation. _Of course_ he was in pain! When _wasn't_ he these days?

 

"Sure, Jazz, yeah. Listen, I'll come home soon. I just…" he runs a hand through his messy, knotty hair. Some of his nails catch on a few sores on his scalp, causing a previously ignored pain in his left finger to come to life. "I just needed some rest first, that's all. I'll come back when I can. Okay?"

 

As they say their (reluctant, on Jazz's end) goodbyes, Dũng comes walking back into the room with a large medical kit in his hands. He plops it down onto Li's lap, startling the nearly comatose boy into alertness.

 

"Bro-na-na," that was an incredibly bad joke and Danny is going to make fun of Li for it later, "We already patched the little man up. What's this for?"

 

Bro-na-na sighs and flips open the case, takes out only one item, and then closes it. He stands in front of Danny and bends down, opening his brown, calloused hand to show… a perfect roll of ace bandages.

 

"Bathroom is through the doorway and to the right."

 

Danny looks up into Dũng's dark, kind eyes with amazement. He signs a slow and shaky 'Thank You' before taking the roll and standing as well as he possibly can without falling over. It's a sedate pace, but he hobbles to the bathroom, barely managing to fight back the pain of his body long enough to get a good look at the rest of the apartment.

 

Unbeknownst to him (he was busy making finger guns at himself in the mirror, trying to ignore how _shit_ he looked), Li's phone was picked up once more to answer a new call.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

As Dũng drops Danny off using his dark blue scooter a few alleys over and away from the FentonWorks house, as per Danny's request ('Bad Idea' he signed, rusty but still in a comprehensive state, 'Stay Away From Parents.') Danny signs out a slow 'Good Bye', earning himself a small smile that cracks the man's normally stony face.

 

He waits until Dũng has pulled out of the alley and driven off before beginning to make his way home. He had taken a few low-dose pain pills at the apartment after some cajoling from the 'adult of the situation' (or, more like - Dũng stared at him with two pills and a glass of water in his hands and Danny wasn't going to say no to _that_ terrifying face) so he wasn't crawling on his belly with weakness. He isn't exactly hopping and skipping with health and joy, either, but limping is enough. He'd been limping places for days now, what's a few days more.

 

Danny makes surreptitious use of the rarely opened back door which leads into the two-car (or: one giant RV and one tiny car) garage. He accidentally knocks over a line of metal poles precariously propped on a wire shelf right next to the door, reminding him of _why_ it was never opened.

 

 _Oops._ Shutting the door and blocking out the fading blue evening light, he hopes that he didn't accidentally alert the cavalry with all this racket.

 

Fortunately, there were many banging and crashing noises coming from the first floor of the house anyways. It seemed like that repairs were underway already.

 

Now he sighs, bracing himself for the impact, _time to deal with the 'rents._ And by rents he means mostly his mom and Jazz, because he could just _feel_ his father's climbing excitement through the last phone conversation they'd had. His dad was probably waiting for his son to come home so that they could yammer on about _ghosts_ , as if Danny ever even wanted to talk about ghosts in the first place.

 

As if Danny hadn't almost been killed twice within the past week by ghosts.

 

Face darkening in emotions he'd been trying to repress, he opens the door that leads him into the hallway of the first floor. Part of him is begging his blotchy mind not to break down and yell at his ignorant parents, but the other half is sharpening its fangs and crouching in a dark corner; watching, waiting for its chance.

 

However, both sides of his warring mind are merged together in _panic run hide fight scared panic_ when he walks straight into the cube force-field with Zippy-Doo-Da still inside.

 

Danny begins the important conversation with his family by screaming, " _Oh, god no!_ " and falling on his butt.

 

Great. _Way to keep it together, Fenton._

 

"Danny? Is that you?" His mother is dusty, with spots of oil streaked on her blue jumpsuit. She stands over him and wipes a towel on her hand, "Finally come home, have you?"

 

"What the hell is _that thing_ still doing here?" He jabs an aching arm at the snarling, half-formed ghost-in-a-box. It sits crunched up in its own ectoplasmic runoff. Danny's victory crow rings in his head.

 

 _Good_ , his mind hisses, _rot._

 

He ignores the uneasy feeling his sudden viciousness brings.

 

His mother puts dirty gloved hands on her hips, "Well, _somebody_ destroyed the first level of the lab and closed the ghost portal, so we have to fix that up before we can even _think_ of moving it securely."

 

Closed the ghost portal? Danny searches his memories for a clue. He'd never even gone into the second level of the lab, the only area that has access to the portal, much less attempt to close the thing again. _He_ couldn't have been the one to close it.

 

"Young man, this is the last time that I'm going to tell you this. Do _not_ close the portal without our permission first," she waves a hand in his face as he struggles to his feet, eyes avoiding the ghost on the ground making rude paw gestures at him, "We're installing a DNA scan into the lever on the portal. Your DNA won't be added until we can trust you to know when it is the right time to initiate an emergency shutdown sequence and when you're just being irrational due to fear."

 

 _What!?_ "You can't do that!" How will he keep any of the ghosts from raiding the town in the middle of the night? What happens if he has to banish another ghost, like the wind one, and can't close the portal to make sure it stays out? How the hell is he ever going to _sleep_ at night again?

 

Danny's mind swirls tumultuously, trying to sort through every possible outcome of the situation. None of them are good.

 

"Oh, yes we can. We've been doing this much longer than you have, Danny. You just need to overcome that fear of yours and start training on how to use our ecto-defensive and offensive weapons, just like your sister has been doing."

 

She's doing that thing where she compares Jazz to Danny, someone who he could never compete with. Usually, he would ignore that kind of comment, but right now it only serves to further swell his head with distracting, baleful thoughts.

 

"It's time to stop playing around, Daniel," her eyes take in his beaten and bruised form swaddled in obviously borrowed clothing. Uncharacteristic disappointment shows in them, leaving Danny with a heavy and tight feeling in his chest, "Time to grow up and stop letting other people baby you all of the time."

 

 _Oh_ , he realizes with harsh clarity, _she's probably talking about Li… or maybe my disgusting depression or anxiety or executive dysfunction or mood swings or panic attacks or-_

 

"Daniel, look at me when I'm talking to you!" Her voice sounds exasperated. Danny distantly notes the lack of his sister or dad in the immediate area; they would usually have come to rescue him by now.

 

 _Mom must've literally eaten them alive_ , he decides, wringing his clammy hands together. He can feel a switch being flipped as his mind and body shuts down as a last-ditch effort to keep calm; a faulty defense system that has never truly worked. He doesn't want his mom to yell at him anymore. He can't take her eyes bearing unfulfilled expectations down on him.

 

A sigh at the lack of response. "Go to your room, Daniel. I have to clean this mess up."

 

His face is hot and his eyes prickle with tears. He stares at the floor with a bent head. Zippy-Doo-Da runs a long black tongue on the inside of its cage like some kind of deranged house cat licking condensation off of a window.

 

"Move, Daniel. And don't even think of going anywhere tomorrow; we are going to have a long talk when you're not acting so irresponsible… _Now,_ Daniel. Don't make me repeat myself _._ "

 

So he turns, lead-footed, and hobbles up the steps, noting every bit of plaster or ruined piece of furniture on the floor. Guilt and sorrow and an underlying course of fury fuses with his heart, causing his journey to be heavy and painful.

 

He can barely even close his half-beaten door all of the way, making sure to lock it, just in case his sister tries to sneak in later. He notes that his phone is plugged into the wall (probably Jazz's doing) before he's standing desolately at the foot of his bed in the middle of his room.

 

Piles of dirty clothes, discarded books, and cardboard litter his floor. Plastic wraps of half-eaten then abandoned food sit on all available flat surfaces along with empty bottles of water and juice. Their lids are most likely shoved up against the corners of the room that nobody can see any more through all of the junk.

 

Numb, Danny shuffles over to the rarely used floor-length mirror on the inside of his closet door. He stares at his dark tangled hair weighed down with a week's worth of oil and grime. His shiny, pimple-dotted forehead with sore, red skin erupting in patches. His unhealthy facial status if from where his picking, uncaring hands wander when he's kept awake at night with disturbing, destructive thoughts but can't find the energy to do anything else.

 

The body that feels unreal is so very tiny and thin; Dũng's t-shirt looks like a dress and his ankle joggers act like sweatpants that drag on the floor. Thin scars line his bony wrists in crisscrossing patterns. The hands that abuse him in the darkest hours of the morning when Tucker is already asleep and Sam is enjoying herself at a Goth Poetry Slam produce cold sweat in guilt at the intentional blood they've drawn from this unwanted body over the past few years.

 

 _Li knows that I'm a mess_ , Danny muses, fingering his self-harm scars with a grudging sort of respect at his tenacity, _and Dũng probably noticed, too._

 

_It's not that big of a deal, I don't think. Lots of people have bad habits._

 

Danny closes his closet door to rid himself of his own image. He kicks up clumps of clothes on his way to his bed, unplugging his phone as he flops on the smelly bedsheets.

 

No messages, no calls.

 

He spends a few seconds of beating back dismay and sorrow from being released in the form of destroying his phone when he realizes something.

 

Jazz had probably memorized his password again when he wasn't looking and snooped through his phone when she plugged it into the outlet.

 

Nobody forgot about him. Not really.

 

Danny rolls his shoulders in discomfort and tosses the phone onto the floor. He wonders how long he's slept in just one day as he closes his eyes. Sleep evades him, and he begins to pick at his injuries just for the hell of it; anything to ease his invasive thoughts.

 

Eventually, he closes his eyes and waits for tomorrow.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny's phone is buzzing a mile a minute as he groggily throws half of himself off of the bed in attempt to find the damn thing and get it to _shut up._

 

"Shuut _uuuup…_ " he groans, because he is oh so articulate at… _Oh god_ , it's like 8 a.m why is _anyone_ texting him at this _hour_ on a _weekend._

 

And he'd just fallen into a doze about two hours ago, too.

 

_Sent at 8:12 a.m_

_TUK: danny are you home_

_TUK: are you safe_

_TUK: please answer Sam is going to eat me alive if you don't_

…

…

_DAN: omg wat it is 8am wtf could you possibly want_

…

_SAM: Danny don't be a little bitch._

Okay, so, chat group time. Great.

_DAN: im sorry but 'bein a little bitch' is my permanent state_

_DAN: please call and order a new danny fenton if youd like a nother ver_

_TUK: haha very funny_

_TUK: But seriously, where are you now?_

 

 _Why did I attract such mother hen friends, anyway?_ Danny mentally anguishes over how often his friends want to _talk_ about his _feelings_ or whatever. Bah! The dead don't have feelings…

 

…He picks at his bloody fingernail and pretends he didn't just think that.

 

_DAN: home_

…

_SAM: And? You aren't safe there, Danny._

_TUK: We all know that._

…

_SAM: I spent the night at Tucker's house._

 

 _Whoa,_ Danny stares at his phone, _they move fast with this whole 'friendship' thing._

 

_SAM: You should come over._

_SAM: We NEED to talk._

_TUK: Yes, please, come over. I don't feel okay with you being there at all right now._

…

_TUK: I'll make your favorite pasta salad?_

…

…

…

_DAN: oky fine_

_DAN: but if i get caught sneaking out im blaming you for the next three weeks_

_DAN: thats three weeks of magical foley pasta salad do you hear me?_

_TUK: Haha, gotcha man_

_TUK: See you soon._

_SAM: lol later loser ;U_

_Sent at 8:31 a.m_

 

Danny doesn't bother changing out of his borrowed clothes from yesterday, only shoving his mostly-charged phone into the surprisingly deep pockets and slipping on some shoes without socks. Because who needs rules when you've got _smelly feet?_

 

As he's slowly sliding his second-story window open, however, he sees a flash of white in the corner of his eye. He turns and catches a partially-visible Bloo hanging out next to the head of his bed.

 

"'Sup," he tosses his chin up at the ghost, "Come here often?"

 

Bloo uses one of its white hands to pick up a piece of clothing, dangle it from a certain height, and then drop it.

 

"Mhm, that's really cool. I bet you're the envy of the uh… Ghost town."

 

Bloo picks the shirt up and drops it again.

 

"Sweet moves, Bloo."

 

Picks it up and drops it.

 

"Bloo."

 

Picks it up and drops it.

 

"…"

 

Picks it up and –

 

"Bloo, seriously, I'm kind of on my way out, so if you could just..." Danny scrubs a hand through his unwashed hair.

 

…Bloo drops the shirt.

 

Sudden clarity. "Oh, you… You can move things? So…" Danny practically falls over in his haste to completely turn towards the now halfway-formed ghost, "Was it you who closed the portal? In the lab?"

 

"Lllooolollbllooo!" Wow, that is the most that Bloo has ever 'spoken' before.

 

"Well, thanks, I guess. For trying to help…" Danny scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, staring into the owlish eyes of his 'new ghost friend.' Now he feels like he can't tell the seemingly happy ghost that its actions had gotten Danny into trouble…

 

Bloo drifts closer, placing one cold hand on Danny's shoulder. Danny resists the blaring alarms in his head telling him to bodily toss himself out the window.

 

"Danny? Are you awake?" Jazz is at his door, but thank the stars that Danny had the foresight to lock himself in his room the night before. Some dramatics were just worth playing out.

 

Danny busies himself with propping his stiff and pained limbs over the side of the window. He's made this jump before, and it has the threat of spraining your ankle if it's executed carelessly, but he's never hopped out the window with injuries before. Bloo hovers beside him, still directly attached to his shoulder via ghostly limb.

 

"Why is your door locked? If this is about how your binder got burned off, I can figure out a way to order you some new ones!"

 

 _Oh, great, now I feel guilty._ But Danny presses on. He has a very stale 'screw it' mood this morning, and he is not going to screw it up and risk spending his day locked in his room shifting from panic attack to panic attack. _Jazz, I'm sorry, but your do-gooder deeds are just going to have to wait._

 

As he's staring apprehensively to the suddenly massive distance between his window and the yard below, he hears his mother walking up the lab steps ( _bet you forgot that you're a freak, right? Think again_ ) and asking Jazz what was wrong.

 

"Danny won't come out of his room and I'm getting worried. His last binder was ruined yesterday, so I think that might be it…"

 

His mother is now walking up the stairs, and _shit_ \- she knows how to pick the flimsy bedroom door locks!

 

"Well, he'll just have to get over it. Daniel, open this door and come out!"

 

"Mom, isn't that a bit too harsh?"

 

"No, Jasmine, he needs to learn his lesson sooner or later. He can't be lazing around all day every day in his room. These past few days have proven it; the world is changing, and he needs to get used to it."

 

Bloo places another hand on his other shoulder, tightening both. Danny can barely feel it because –

 

Because Bloo just shoved him out the damn window.

 

With a choked shout, Danny falls from the height while flailing his limbs. His nose barely brushes the grass below when he's suddenly… not falling anymore?

 

"What." He is dumbfounded. And then he is smushed face-first against the ground, unharmed (as he can be) from his delayed fall.

 

Thoroughly confused, Danny peels himself from the dewy grass and stands up, casting his eyes back up to his window.

 

Bloo waves cheekily and disappears.

 

"Damn _ghosts,_ " Danny mutters, patting down his borrowed clothing with a critical eye. He didn't want to return these torn or stained, after all.

 

Just then, he hears his mother throw open his poor, violated bedroom door. There are twin gasps, one of outrage and the other of surprise, as the two red-heads take in the open window.

 

Danny is too slow to limp away and out of sight. The only cards he currently has in his deck are 'freaking out' and 'don't even go there you don't know how that works.'

 

So he freaks out.

 

Two bodies are framed in the second story window.

 

Danny accidentally pulls the second card, and his family members look straight through his completely invisible body.

 

His mother clucks her teeth with a pinched expression, "That _boy._ I told him to go to his room last night, so who _knows_ how long he's been gone."

 

"But, mom," Jazz's trembling voice interrupts Maddie's spiel, "What if a ghost got him? That's been happening an awful lot lately; what if they pick on him specifically as a target? What if he's constantly in danger?"

 

Maddie brushes a bare hand through her daughter's hair, "Oh, sweetie, don't worry so much. You can call his friends and see if they have him. If not, then we can load up the Fenton RV and take it around town to try and track him. He does have an incredibly unusual ecto-signature these days…"

 

 _Busted_ , his mind sings. Danny quickly limps away from the harrowing scene before his 'ghostly power' snaps and he becomes visible once more.

 

Walking between the side of his house and a chain link fence, Danny doesn't see his lumbering father coming until they both turn a corner. He has nowhere to dodge, so he just stands still and waits for the collision – one solid, visible man with one solid, invisible boy.

 

Instead, he is shaken to the core when his father walks _through_ him - whistling and strolling on his merry way to the garage door.

 

 _No way_ , he thinks dismally with a mind made of tissue paper, _no no no – it can't be happening like this. I can't… this isn't real, surely. What the hell_ was _that?_

 

Despite his flimsy mind-space, he continues his limp down the sidewalk. He decides that, after a quick look down at a body that doesn't appear to exist, he would try to stick to the backroads so that a sudden-reappearance of his physical form wouldn't make someone's kindly old grandfather faint and drown in a conveniently placed puddle… or something.

 

His disjointed mind floats back to the other day when he was stuck in the lab trying to dodge all of Zippy-Doo-Da's spinning razor projectiles. The only reason he had survived a direct attack was because the hit was never a hit at all – the wheel had went straight through his body with nary a scratch. He remembers the feeling of being in that translucent state, and how it felt distinctly different from being in a solid state.

 

What he couldn't understand, however, was how these faulty abilities kept cropping up at odd times. Wasn't the 'other body' supposed to be messed up like this, not the other way around? Was it true, what his disturbed thoughts concocted, that he was no longer human?

 

Turning invisible, see-through and non-physical, being able to float at random times, and unexpected ecto-energy-shots flying out of his hand… It was making Danny think of a glitchy video game version of a human. He felt like a prototype, or a beta, just within the squalls of imagination in a developer's mind.

 

Danny shudders at the image and messily hops over the fence that leads into Tucker's backyard, scraping his elbows as he does so. He can feel two pairs of eyes prickling at his senses ( _friends_ , his mind assures him, _safety_ ) and a flash of contempt for his situation.

 

He was glad last night that he didn't blow up at his mother, but now he wasn't so sure. All of his negative, destructive thoughts and feelings were beginning to surface again. Maybe it would've been better if he had gotten all of his violent, impulsive urges out before coming here.

 

 _Too late now_ , he thinks as he's shoving himself through the large never-before-actually-used-by-a-dog dog-door attached to Tucker's side entrance. Tucker thinks it came with the house, but nothing (or no one) but Danny has ever used it. His parents always forgot that there was a lock for the thing, so Danny could sneak in and out most of the time with ease.

 

Fortunately, everyone in the house appeared to still be asleep. Danny pats his now-visible stomach to affirm his solidness before ghosting up the stairs.

 

Of course, it's just then that he begins to hover. Because he has the absolute worst of luck.

 

Shrugging with an uncaring (dead) attitude, Danny flies his way over to Tucker's door and knocks on it softly.

 

Tucker opens the door, "Hey, Danny come on- Oh. Um. That's a thing."

 

Danny says nothing as he levitates past his star-struck friend, giving Sam a small heart attack when he tries to make himself fall as an axel onto the bed.

 

It doesn't work, and he ends up doing an impressive dead-man's float just a few feet off of Tucker's green-colored sheets. "Uuuugghh whhhyyyyy..."

 

"D-danny?" Sam scoots herself closer to get a good look of her supernatural friend, "How are you doing that?"

 

"I don't knoooowww," he moans in despair, turning over in the air to 'lay' on his side, "I can't control this 'thing.'"

 

Tucker joins the small group of two after quietly shutting his door. He's staring at Danny with an incredibly concerned look.

 

"I… Okay, we can work with this. Right, Sam? This is do-able. We can just…" Tucker waves his hands at the crying boy flying above his bed, "Talk to him while he flies. And cries. Because that's cool. Cry all you want, man."

 

Sam follows his lead as they sit on the bed, close enough that they could reach out and bat their friend around like a balloon. It is both incredibly fascinating yet horrible to think about.

 

"Danny. We need to talk about what's happening to you right now," Sam begins in her nasally, stern voice that she only saves for when she wants something, but being violent won't get her what she desires, "And we're going to work this out. Because we love you no matter what."

 

Sam looks at Tucker. Showtime. "Yea, we really do l-love you, Danny. And we'll accept you no matter what. Even if you turn into a pile of ghost goo at the end of everyday like some kind of fairytale princess cursed by a wicked witch."

 

But Danny is still being stubborn. He rolls his body so that he's 'laying' facedown towards the bed.

 

His friends rectify this by simply lying down underneath him on their backs, acting like they would if they were stargazing. It has a significantly different effect when they are, instead, gazing straight up into Danny's face.

 

"…Fine. Fine! Do you want to know, really?" Danny crosses his arms, looking for all in the world like an upside-down photoshopped version of how he usually would look in this pose. "Honestly? About what happened to me in the lab the day that _I died?_ "

 

Sam and Tucker flinch and press their shoulders together for comfort.

 

"Once you ask, I won't stop, because I'll tell y- _OUOOO -_ "

 

Danny abruptly loses his hovering abilities and falls onto his two friends, earning many grunts and shifting of bodies as skin smacks skin and bones collide. After the chaos, he finds himself sandwiched between two warm bodies.

 

He's trapped. Danny starts to shiver uncontrollably.

 

"Shh, Danny, it's –"

 

"If you're about to say 'it's okay, Danny, everything will be fine' then I _will_ hit you, and it _will_ hurt," Danny growls in his wavering tone, words betrayed by his convulsing core.

 

One of Sam's thick arms comes to lay across his chest, effectively pinning him with the weight alone. The fat on her limb is slightly clammy and cold, but Danny uses her shimmering blue and pink stretch marks as a focus point, eyes tracing the lines like a maze or puzzle until he pulls himself together again.

 

Tucker's weird little feet with the bones all crunched in his toes, causing them to be constantly bent, slide up his ankles and start to wrestle his shoes off. It's a quick and easy task, not only because Tucker's feet have long toes, but also because Danny isn't wearing any socks.

 

 _Foiled again_ , his mind quips, _by your lack of motivation to do simple tasks._

 

Tucker also pins him with an arm, only this time he reaches far enough to grab onto Sam's shirt. The purple Goth says nothing, apparently comfortable with this level of contact.

 

Danny feels like he's in a coffin… of friendly, touchy-feely love.

 

It is charming in that stomach-squirmy way that holding hands makes him feel like.

 

"I… I don't know how to describe it. Dying, that is," he starts, quiet and already being pulled into his mind like sinking into a murky black lake. "I think I was electrocuted before anything else, though. Before… before…"

 

He breathes. It's all he can do.

 

Sam and Tucker stay still and quiet. He is thankful.

 

"It felt like an out of body experience, like in those dumb TV shows with the medium ladies and their big, poofy hair styles… Except I didn't have a body to come back to when it was all over. I swear I…"

 

Another moment of breathing, thinking, _being_ , before he's ready.

 

"I remember the stars." His voice sounds so far away. "I remember the stars in a field. I was naming constellations when I just… Happened to notice that my body was gone." He gives a little giggle of hysteria. It sounds like a mouse being crushed under a careless foot.

 

"I didn't have any lungs, you know? There was no air. I don't think I even had any blood anymore. It was weird to not have a mouth. I swear, I could feel the way the portal ripped me apart and then… It put me back together all _wrong._ Like when a kid's too frustrated with a puzzle that they start forcing the opposite pieces together.

 

"And… When I woke up, you two were just… staring at me. And I couldn't remember why I was even down there, in the lab. But my body felt… really _good,_ " he hesitates at the wording, "I don't know how to describe it. It's like… taking off my binder at the end of the day, except I don't hate myself for it.

 

"And that body… The green one with the white hair. It's me, I think. It's me, just… different."

 

Admitting that was like pulling out his heart and putting it on a cutting board, watching and feeling the blade slice it into proportionate slivers. It doesn't hurt like a wound, but he can feel every individual crunch and crush of flesh, like thick, wet sponge-like meat being masticated between a jaw full of teeth.

 

 _Gutted_ , he imagines, _and then sewn back together as an empty shell with yellow bile used as lube._

 

Sudden fatigue works its way through his system. He is no longer shaking from physical touch or lost in the sea of a dissociative mind playing its horrors over and over again like a broken tape. He is simply tired and hurt in too many ways to count.

 

"Thank you for telling us, Danny."

 

He can't tell who said that – Sam or Tucker? But it doesn't matter, because Danny has had enough excitement for now. He is distantly aware of the fact that their conversation is not over, but at least the hardest part is done.

 

His eyes close.

 

Danny breathes, relishing in the simple act of living. For just a little bit longer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maddie's response to Danny's depression/anxiety/episodes is a pretty common one for parents who are 'uneducated' in the ways of how mental illness works. She's understanding and accommodating most of the time, but when it really counts, she can only think of how annoying/obtrusive/time wasting his mental illness is. I'm basically using her as a scapegoat - every 'common' thing that a neglectful parent does to their mentally ill/trans child is going to happen, pretty much.
> 
> Do you like Bloo? Bloo is tons of fun. They were a nurse in their human life who was both mute and deaf and worked in the children's ward of a hospital. They came out of the portal because they sensed Danny's distress, and accidentally made him freak out and sink through the floor when they tried to comfort him. But Danny will never know that because Bloo doesn't speak words or know any sign language anymore.


	15. green guts are healthy, i guess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *transphobia, dissociation, body horror

 

Danny dreams about Tucker making him pasta salad.

 

Danny wakes up to find Tucker making him pasta salad.

 

It is one of the most disconcerting experiences he has ever had in his life.

 

"Dude," he says, standing behind Tucker at the kitchen counter, wiping a hand down his bruised and tired face while clutching at a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, "Is this, like, real life right now?"

 

"Yes, Danny – you are currently awake and real," Tucker informs for the third time in a row because he's an amazing friend with the proper skills to live somewhat healthfully. His hands work with a knife and a cutting board as he chops up vegetables to add to the mixing bowl. "You just had a long nap, a shower, and it is currently 3 p.m on a Saturday. You have been here since 9 a.m. You asked me to make you pasta salad over the phone before you came here."

 

"…Are you _su-_ "

 

"Yes, Danny, he's sure," Sam pipes up from their sitting position at the kitchen table. They are eating left over salad Tucker's mom had left in the fridge sometime that week, due to Tucker putting pepperonis in the pasta salad he was currently making.

 

"…You're both so weird," Danny mumbles with the utmost confidence as he floats, involuntarily, a few feet off the floor.

 

Tucker and Sam share a look. "Yes, Danny. We are indeed the weirdest."

 

Danny wanders off into the house with a 'don't mock me, Sam' to do… whatever it is he can do while floating.

 

Thankfully, Tucker's parents had cleared out that morning, deciding that it was 'a good day to visit the grandparents' once they found three tired and cried out children all curled up on one bed like a sad puppy pile of stress.

 

All in all, Danny loved how cool Tucker's parents could be sometimes, even if they occasionally alluded to Danny's gender as 'a fad these days' and would never let Tucker shop anywhere but the men's section in stores.

 

"Check me the hell out, guys."

 

Tucker turns away from his awesome pasta for a moment only to roll his eyes in exasperation at the sight he is greeted with.

 

Of _course_ Danny would make a no-gravity swing out of his plastic chandelier light in the hallway by tying his blanket up like a cocoon.

 

"Careful, you could stop flying at any second you know." Tucker goes back to finishing up the salad, putting a bit more meat in while Sam isn't looking so that the vegan can't scold him for 'overdosing Danny with unnecessary proteins.'

 

A year ago, had you called Tucker Foley a doting or caring person, he would've knocked your plate of food to the floor just to prove you wrong. Now, however, he's honest to god thinking about purchasing twin shirts labelled 'Mom Friend' for the holidays. One would go to Sam for Hanukah, of course, because she's totally in on the Danny Defense Squad.

 

Danny would be getting a shirt with 'Chaotic Good' printed on the front.

 

The home phone rings. Sam isn't getting up from her lounged position and Danny looks like he's got his head stuck in the suspended blanket and can't get out, so Tucker just sighs and answers it himself.

 

"Foley residence, to whom am I speaking to?" No one's ever going to accuse the Foley's of not teaching their son any manners, even if he does act like a little punk all the time outside of the house.

 

"Hi, there, Tucker," it's Danny's mom, which is the _worst_ possible person to call right now. Tucker can tell that Danny heard (how?) when he gives a squeak of fear and starts struggling with double the effort. "I was wondering if I could speak to Danny?"

 

Tucker and Sam had both answered Jazz's texts asking them if they were with Danny about ten minutes after their aforementioned friend had fallen asleep on the bed. There was no getting out of this with a lie – Maddie Fenton probably knows by now that neither Tucker nor Sam would let Danny walk out of the house alone with the state he's in.

 

"Uh…" Danny chooses that moment to untangle from his blanket attached to the ceiling and fall to the floor with a loud thud.

 

"What was that noise?" Danny starts groaning out an ' _oooowwww ohh my noooosseee_.' It is fairly audible, and Tucker has no doubt that Maddie can hear it.

 

"Oh, uh, nothing…" Sam is laughing from her seat at the table. She really _does_ derive amusement from others' misfortune, "Danny doesn't want to talk to you right now, though."

 

There's a soft little 'oh', as if Danny's mother just couldn't believe that, after yelling at her son and locking him in his room for something he can't control, he wouldn't want to talk to her anymore. "Will he talk to his father or Jazz, then?"

 

Danny is too busy stopping up the blood coming from his nose with a paper towel the laughing Sam had provided him with. "Not right now, no. Sorry. It's been kind of hard on him for the past week or so. He just needs to stay with his friends for a while and... Heal."

 

A pause, "Well, I guess if that's all he needs… Please tell Daniel that he has a call waiting for him at home though, 'kay?"

 

"Sure thing, Mrs. F," he hangs up despite not getting the name of the supposed 'caller.' It can't be Namguhng, because he would've just rang Danny's phone, which is still mostly charged and in Danny's never-ending pockets.

 

"Have I asked you where you got those awesome mint green pants yet? Because I kind of want a pair to lay around the house in…" Sam prods at the collapsed Danny on the floor with her socked foot. He groans, but sits up still clutching his nose.

 

"Ob, I god et frum _Dũng._ " Danny's voice sounds like he's trying to speak with cotton in his throat. It is kind of hilarious.

 

" _Dung?_ " Sam echoes with a disgusted look on her face, "Why would you shop at a store named after shit?"

 

"No!" Danny shakes his head harshly as he stands up with much effort and grunting, "Dũng, Wi's brodder! I bowwowed it." Danny is starting to look incredibly annoyed at how he can't pronounce words without sounding like a movie acting two-year-old.

 

Sam wipes a tear of hilarity out of their eye because they are Satan, "This is… This is just so funny, you don't understand. Say somethin' else Danny, please, I'll, like, give you fifty dollars or something."

 

"Buck you."

 

Sam wheezes and slaps her knee like an old man. Then she pulls out her wallet.

 

 _Well_ , Tucker scowls, _at least they're somewhat true to their word. Even if they're a total_ ass _about it._

 

"Come on, Danny. Stop hanging around this jerk." Sam hisses at Tucker's comment like a vampire, which would be terrifying if she weren't smiling while doing it. "The pasta salad is done, anyway."

 

Danny lights up, " _Wooah_ , really? Can I have the entire mixing bowl?" He forgot to hold his nose, allowing a trickle of blood to rapidly flow down his face.

 

Sam and Tucker say nothing as part of that blood stream is tinged a glowing green, "Sure, Danny, whatever you wan- _Wait_ , oh my god, no I didn't mean it, please don't eat that much you're going to throw up."

 

Danny whines out an 'aawww, Tuk! Not cool, dude, gimme the bowl!' as Tucker picks it up, holds it above his head, then hands it to Sam to hold above _her_ head when Danny proves to be a higher jumper than his childhood friend can ever remember him being.

 

Danny pouts as Sam replaces his dirty towel with a new one, smirking the whole time as they lift the bowl an entire foot higher than Danny's head, "Come on, no fair, you know I can't jump that high – " he stops mid-complaint as he gets a light of mischievousness in his eyes.

 

Then he sighs out, body going lax and looking very peaceful as he appears to gaze at some unseen spot on the wall.

 

…What is happening? Sam and Tucker look at each other in confusion.

 

"Is he, like, meditating or something?" Sam whispers to her slightly shorter friend. Tucker shrugs.

 

Danny starts to float.

 

"Ha!" Danny arches his body forward and points _down_ at his floor-bound friends, "Now I can fly – like a superhero! The kind that steals entire bowls of pasta salad, that is."

 

And with that, he somewhat shakily swoops over Sam's head and snatches the pasta bowl, taking a fork from the counter as he flies, cackling, through the house.

 

Sam is speechless while Tucker is rubbing his forehead, "He's gonna drop the thing. It's just a given. It's going to happen, and he can only blame himself."

 

Ten minutes later, there is the sound of a body hitting the floor and a predictable wail of 'No! My _fooood!_ ' from upstairs.

 

Tucker's inner peace weeps. Sam simply weeps with tears of laughter.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Your temperature is…" Tucker scrunches his face up in confusion as he looks at the thermometer in his hand, "This can't be right – it says your temperature is 94.5 F, but that's 0.5 degrees lower than the beginnings of hypothermia."

 

Danny swings his bruised and bandaged legs as he sits idly on Tucker's bathroom sink. He had had a small freak out once he pulled the towel away from his bloody nose and saw flecks of glowing green in it, but thankfully he wasn't alone this time, and had Sam and Tucker there to calm him down.

 

The two not-prone-to-immediately-panicking-when-something-goes-wrong friends had suggested that they do a small health test, just to see if anything basic had changed about Danny's body.

 

Which is why they are currently baffled over Danny's results, using only what they could find in the house to measure them, "Oh, and your heart rate is below 60 beats per minute, which means you're either a world famous athlete or you have bradycardia," Tucker throws down the clipboard with a flat expression of disbelief, "Congratulations. You're a half-ghost-boy."

 

They had come up with the theory 'half-dead-Danny' a while earlier, but no one honestly thought it would hold any water. Now, however…

 

Sam suddenly shines a small light in Danny's eyes, causing him to flinch back and swat at her. "His eyes aren't dilating anymore; they're just constantly expanded to the largest possible diameter. Also, Danny, did you know that your eyes reflect light? Like a cat's?" Sam clicks off the flashlight and picks up the discarded clipboard to write something down, mumbling 'interesting' and 'ghost-human mix' under their breath.

 

 _Huh_ , Danny thinks with a distant air, _no wonder I can suddenly see so well in the dark._

 

"So, how regular is your cycle and how heavy is it?" Sam sticks the pencil under his chin, asking a question about his menstruation and yet staring at his mouth with dawning fascination.

 

Danny rubs his hands together like a fly, "Hehe, it's not. I'm anemic and underweight, sooo…" He shrugs one shoulder like it's no big deal that he's _literally starving himself_ every day of his life.

 

Sam and Tucker share a severe look. "Hey, don't look at me. I fed him pasta salad! I don't condone eating disorders, you know," Tucker defends himself as the purple Goth towers over him with raised plucked eyebrows.

 

That line of conversation is dropped; too many bombshells in a small amount of time to spare the emotional capacity to deal with that right now.

 

Danny sticks his tongue out without thought when Sam asks, only to gag and choke when they're suddenly wrenching his jaw open and shining a flashlight at his gums.

 

"Oooh, this is cool – Hey Tuk, c'mere and look at his cute lil' baby fangs," Sam chuckles evilly from over Danny's head, looking like a nightmarish version of a dentist.

 

"What? That's impossible." Tucker is suddenly leaning over Danny as well. A tongue depression stick is shoved between his upper lip and his gums, displaying his front teeth.

 

"Whoa, you were serious," Tucker raises his phone and snaps a picture of the inside of Danny's mouth.

 

Finally, the two _hellions_ release his head from the terribly craned and open position they'd forced it into. "Ow, Sam, that hurt! You could've warned me you were gonna do that."

 

Tucker waves the phone under his nose with the picture displayed on the screen. Danny balks.

 

He has two tiny pinpricks of pointed white coming out from somewhere above his canine teeth. He reflexively rubs the skin between his nose and his upper lip, feeling two little bumps when he does.

 

"Neat-o." Is all he can say to _that_ revelation. He turns to the mirror behind his head and looks at his face shape. Now that they'd pointed it out, his lips do look a little more puckered and sloped outwards than usual.

 

"Great," he says sarcastically, "Now I'm gonna look like I have an over-bite."

 

"Nah, you won't," Sam waves their hand in the air, staring at the profile of his face with interest, "You'll just look like you have a fuller upper lip is all. Or maybe like you have some heavy duty piercings there once, and the scar tissue from them healing over pumped up the volume a bit."

 

Danny defers to her judgement on piercings and scar behavior due to her own numerous piercings and skin imperfections. Since Sam had spent the night, she had also taken a shower, but didn't exactly bring a makeup bag. Her bare face displayed a multitude of acne scars and healing white flecks where holes used to be. "Thanks, Sam… I think."

 

"So," Tucker interrupts with a pensive face, "Before, you called this whole 'other body' a kind of… transformation, right?" He walks forward slightly to stand before the sitting Danny. "Can you transform right now, then?"

 

Danny has a momentary pause of life where he stops breathing, thinking, and responding. All in his mind's eye can he see is a bright white light flashing… And death. Being dead. Feeling dead because he can't _breathe oh god oh why it hurts it hurts it hurts in the best way –_

 

"Nope. Fresh outta' ecto-energy, sorry. Come back tomorrow." Danny looks like he's seeing his life flash before his eyes despite his deceptively calm answer.

 

"Danny? Are you dissociating right now?" Sam crosses her arms, peering into the boy's face.

 

Danny throws his head back and scoffs as he sinks, translucent, through the counter, " _Whaat?_ No way, why would you say that? _Pffft._ "

 

"Danny, I can see right through you."

 

Danny slumps, apparently unaware of his slowly descending state, "Okay, fine. You caught me. Nothing feels real right now… _Again._ "

 

"No, I mean; Danny, I can _literally_ see right through you. Plus, you're fading through my counter, and I don't think that's very healthy for the wood," Tucker deadpans, pointing at his lower-height-than-normal friend.

 

The supernatural teen looks down at his chest, some of his chin being swallowed by the counter as well. He looks like a Halloween gag candy dish, where the 'severed head' sits in the middle and begins to talk if your trigger its motion sensor.

 

"Oh," Danny shrugs his shoulders, which peak over the grey counter top like tiny black cloth waves, "whoops, I guess." Instinctually, he holds a hand out to Sam, non-verbally asking for some assistance.

 

Sam laughs, expecting her human hand to pass through Danny's ghostly body.

 

As they make contact, and Danny's hand grips theirs, Sam turns translucent as well.

 

Everybody screams all at once, the cacophony of noise bouncing off of the bathroom walls sharply, most likely alerting the neighbors in the process.

 

Sam jerks their hand back, somehow also pulling Danny out of the counter as well. She falls back onto the surprised Tucker as Danny careens into the two, causing one big pileup of three solid humans.

 

They all breathe heavily for a moment, their hearts beating faster with the shock. Danny's heart almost sounds like an average human's at resting point, but no one comments on that little observation.

 

At some point, after their heart rates calmed, and the situation finally sank in, they all collectively decided that it was time to cuddle on the bed again. Making sure to put everything back, type up the sheet of vitals onto a flashdrive and destroy the original, they all collapse onto Tucker's bed for the second time that day.

 

"Hey, why am I always in the middle?" Danny fusses, squirming around in his sandwiched position between Sam and Tucker.

 

"It's because you're the baby, _baby,_ " Sam mumbles caustically into Tucker's shoulder, which she can reach because she spooned herself around the middle man.

 

"I'm not a baby!" The youngest and shortest of the trio predictably cries, only to be shushed by Tucker's hand as it pets his hair calmingly. Danny tries not to peel off his skin as the itchy, squirmy feeling in his stomach starts up again. "Not you two, too. Li calls me baby all the time; it's so annoying!"

 

Tucker and Sam suddenly stiffen. A thought comes to both of their minds simultaneously, passed through their meeting eyes above Danny's nest of black hair.

 

"Hey, Danny?"

 

"Yeah, what Tuk?" Danny seems unaware of his impending doom.

 

"Why is Namguhng named 'Doctor Hands On' in your phone?"

 

A beat of silence. Sam looks like she's ready to whip out her butterfly knife again, only this time, it would be thrown into the throat of a certain Korean boy.

 

"Um, because he needs physical affection to survive and his dream is to become a doctor? Duh," the unsuspecting boy huffs out snarkily. His nose is probably scrunched up and his blue eyes rolling.

 

But neither Sam nor Tucker notice that as they both sigh in relief. Crisis averted.

 

"Why do you ask? And how did you find out, anyway. Did Jazz tell you? I know she snoops in my phone even when I change the password."

 

Sam blinks, thinking quickly, "Yeah, she did. We called her earlier to get Namguhng's number, and she just happened to mention the contact name being funny."

 

Tucker clears his throat, "She also mentioned two contacts named 'Salty' and 'Sweet.' Who are they?"

 

Danny starts to snicker.

 

Sam and Tucker begin to panic, "Oh my god, they really are strippers, aren't they? Dammit, Tuk, I freaking told you that Namguhng was a street walker!"

 

Danny's snickering dissolves into choked laughter, "W-what!? Did Jazz tell you that oh my god she must've had a freaking _heart attack_ _aaAhAAAAA-_ " And Danny is lost to them once more, laughter at some point becoming just pure yelling.

 

Danny is abruptly sitting up, shunting limbs off of him with surprising (and possibly supernatural) strength as he digs an entire arm into the impossibly deep sweatpants pocket, "Hold on, you have _got_ to try this."

 

The two bewildered friends sit up as well, finding themselves to be crowding around Danny's phone in a circle as he selects the 'Sweet' contact and dials the number, hastily putting the phone on speaker.

 

"Hello? Danny?"

 

"Hi Kwan!" Danny exclaims in an extremely chirpy voice, "How are you?"

 

"I'm alright, Danny, thanks for asking."

 

"Mhm; how did the game go on Friday?" Danny winks at Tucker and Sam, alluding to the fact that he has no idea if a game happened yesterday at all, but he's heard Li ask the exact same question all the time to yield positive results.

 

"Great! We won, 45-26!"

 

"Oh, awesome! Do you want to know what _I_ did on Friday?"

 

Sam and Tucker look at their manically grinning friend in alarm. Was he going to tell Kwan about ghost fighting in a fit of impulsive info-sharing?

 

"Oh, did you hang out with Li? He seemed extra happy today at the coffee shop."

 

Danny blinks owlishly, smile sliding off his face at the unexpected answer, "Oh, well… Yes, I did, actually. I went over to his brother's house with him." A pause. "Hey, did you know that Dũng was Li's foster brother when we pranked him that one day with the pies and the lame code names?"

 

A laugh. "Yes, I knew. It just made it funnier to me. Also, thanks for spending some part of the day with him! He'd been down for some reason for a while there, but just a few hours with you sure perks him up."

 

Danny doesn't say anything from sheer embarrassment, his shoulders hiking up around his ears and making him look like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.

 

"He was talking about your friends, though – Sam and Tucker? – saying that they'd given him a weird phone call, asking about you."

 

Danny's previously small posture turns stiff and straight as he glares at his friends. They begin to fidget nervously as the light catches Danny's reflective eyes, flashing green momentarily, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'll just have to have _a word_ with them then."

 

"…O-okay? Haha, well, my nana is calling for me, so I'll talk to you later, Danny-boy! Bye bye!"

 

"Bye, Kwan!"

 

The phone conversation ends.

 

Silence rules the bedroom.

 

"I-in our defense," Tucker squeaks out, holding up one trembling finger, "we were still freaking out about Jazz telling us you'd been kidnapped by two unknown people. Again."

 

Sam nods their head and gains their confident composure back once more, "Yea, no one knew where you were for a long while there. We were sort of up in arms by the time we found out it was Namguhng that had taken you."

 

Danny lets out a breath, "Okay. I guess I can't be mad, then." Then he's scrolling on his phone again, selecting the 'Salty' contact name with a new smile. "We have one more call to do, though!"

 

It barely rang for a few seconds before it was picked up with a familiar shout of " _What,_ Fenton!?"

 

"Hey, Dash!" Danny answers with the same chipper tone that he'd used on Kwan, "How are you?"

 

"Peachy, loser. Now what the hell do you want?"

 

Tucker has to cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Danny's grinning and Dash's annoyed yelling was just too much…

 

"Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to ask how the game went yesterday."

 

"We won. Seriously, though; shut up or get to the point, or else I'll have Wes toss you in a garbage bin again."

 

"That's awes- Wait, what?" Danny looks flummoxed once more, blinking eyes wide with dawning information. He'd been sidelined by two different phone conversations in one hour, "Who is Wes and why did he throw me in the trash that day? Do you know how long I was in there before someone found me? I had a smelly nap because of that!"

 

"Beats me. I only found out because the janitor that found you likes to gossip with the secretary who guards the unisex bathroom by the office and goes into Principal Ishiyama's room all the time to talk really loud about all the stuff the janitor heard that week."

 

Danny is having strange thoughts that are comparing Dash's line of hearsay with his sister's equally complicated grapevine.

 

"Oh… Well who is he, then?" Danny has a suspicious feeling that it's the tall, slim red-head who sometimes hangs out with Dash and Kwan in the hallways.

 

"He's… bad news, that's what he is. Just stay away from him, okay?" An odd tone is laced over Dash's warning.

 

So Danny asks because he loves dying and being dead, "What? Why? Is he a serial nerd-tosser or something?" He snorts at his own joke, slapping Sam's knee. This earns him a hiss, but thankfully the Goth doesn't try to retaliate.

 

"No. He thinks you're hot, and it's gross."

 

"Wow – excuse you." Danny is incredibly offended, "Why is that a bad thing? I can look… like, _five_ out of _ten_ when I want to, thank you very much."

 

"It's gross because he says he's straight."

 

Tucker breathes in harshly with a shake of his head. Sam looks like she's about to drill Dash for answers, but the smarter friend puts a dark hand on her shoulder, mouthing 'Not now.'

 

"Oh," he whispers weakly. A striking chill settles in his bones. He identifies it as disgust. "I see."

 

"Yeah, _that's_ why he's bad news. Me 'n Kwan only hang out with him because he's a decent player on the football team."

 

Danny doesn't say anything, too twisted up in his own mind.

 

"Hey, Fenturd. Listen. I know you probably feel like shit now, and I'm sorry. But you have my permission to… _Ugh_ … To call me - I _guess_ \- he ever bothers you. Okay? Okay. Great. I'm hanging up now."

 

The line disconnects.

 

Another silence reigns over the bedroom, this time more stony than the first. Danny drops the phone onto the mattress and rubs his bruised, tired eyes, groaning the whole time.

 

"It was a funny joke, too…" He sighs, letting his arms fall heavily into his lap and blinking away the extra moisture. "I'll just save it for some other time."

 

Another nap was in order, it seems.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Sam is woken up at 3 a.m by a cold hand shaking their shoulder. It takes them a minute to gain their full consciousness, but they curse quietly once they realize that they were still in Tucker's bed curled around their currently awake ghost-boy. The nap had turned into another impromptu sleepover.

 

 _My parents are going to be pissed_ , Sam purposefully forgot their phone to avoid contact with them for this reason.

 

"Sam? Oh my god, are you awake? Because I am _freaking out_ right now," Danny whispers with a trembling voice. The fat Goth is immediately 100% awake and gripping on to her friend's worryingly tiny waist.

 

"What's wrong?"

 

"So, like… My temperature is really low, right?"

 

"…Yes." Sam doesn't know where this is going. Didn't they establish this a few hours ago?

 

"And – and… my teeth are all fucked up now, right?"

 

"Just a little bit…" Maybe Danny's getting self-conscious over the new changes?

 

"Doesn't this mean that I can never got to the doctor again? Or the dentist?"

 

Shit. Danny's right.

 

"And… what if someone notices? Like they touch me and I feel like a block of ice or… What if my teeth get too big and I look like some kind of psycho vampire?" Danny rambles on and on about all of the possibilities, hands picking at the skin on his neck anxiously. Sam pulls those hands away to avoid any more intentional self-injury the boy might be trying to do.

 

Sam kicks Tucker on his leg, jerking him awake within a few seconds. Tucker got used to Sam's dream-kicking the night before, but this one was especially hard.

 

"Mmhffwhaat," he moans, rubbing a hand over his face and further distorting his words.

 

"Tuk – Tuk oh my god," Danny is doing that thing where he can't seem to get enough air, clutching at his unevenly bound chest and hissing his words with a closing throat, "I'm _so_ messed up. I'm so – this _isn't okay_ anymore. It's _never been okay!_ I didn't want this…"

 

"Shh, Danny, shh, just listen," Tucker squeezes Danny in between himself and Sam. His hands seem to be the only ones with proper circulation in the trio, as they are surprisingly warm, "We'll tell you what to do. Okay? We'll help you."

 

"Y- you will? How?" Danny blubbers with his uneven breathing. His words are disbelieving, but hopeful.

 

"…We'll help you fight the ghosts that come through the portal," Sam declares. Tucker only takes a few moments of deliberation before he nods as well.

 

"Yea. No more doing that kind of stuff alone, okay? We'll even help you train your, uh… powers so that you can protect people with them, like Nam- Li." the tired boy adds.

 

Danny appears to be calming down and thinking his friend's propositions over.

 

"But, for right now," Tucker yawns, grabbing a hold of Sam's arm as well as wrapping himself around Danny's side, "sleep. We can start the whole 'saving the town' gig tomorrow."

 

Sam heeds her friend's advice and begins to drift, painstakingly aware of the conscious Danny switching his beset gaze between his two friends every few minutes of sleeplessness.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny sneaks back into his house early Sunday morning with the grace of an elephant.

 

Therefore, he thinks he only deserves his fate when it is an elephant that accosts him as soon as he comes in the door.

 

"Danny-boy!" His father calls, spreading his arms wide and picking his tiny son up in a hug-carry. "Come down to the lab – we finally moved that ghost you caught into a more permanent home!"

 

Jack carries the unwilling Danny all the way down the steps to the lab, somehow unaware of his son's building panic attack.

 

Jack plops him down and in front of a glowing green tube of ectoplasm in the first level of the lab. It is about the height of his mother, who is standing next to it taking notes of some kind. Danny takes a cursory glance at the second level door, relieved to find it completely locked, thus not shining the portal's searching green light at him.

 

"Um." Danny peers into the thickness of the green goo, trying to tell what he is supposed to be looking at, "Is it… a fish?"

 

His father laughs, "No, no, Danny. It's the ghost you caught!"

 

A large paw slams into the glass right in front of Danny's nose.

 

Danny shouts, falling backwards onto his dad's stomach. Zippy-Doo-Da slowly takes shape, its dark green body standing out against the lighter green of the surrounding ectoplasm. Despite not actively destabilizing into ectoplasm, half of its face is still missing along with its entire left shoulder and arm.

 

Danny feels like he shouldn't be awake right now.

 

"Y – you trapped it? Why didn't you shove it back in the portal?" Danny questions, this time looking to his mother.

 

"It's the first ghost captured – of course we aren't going to let it go, silly! We have so many experiments to perform. I doubt it will ever get away." She responds in her usual 'mother knows best' tone. It sends chills down Danny's spine.

 

His parents had only ever shared fever dreams of 'dissecting and studying' their first ghost at the dinner table to their half-cognizant children. Danny had thought nothing of it, but, now…

 

Fear grips his heart, not only for himself as some sort of freakish ghost-human-mix, but for the full ghost currently trapped like sand in a vial. What would happen to them?

 

Cold air rises through his throat, but Danny can't tell whether it's a delayed reaction to the caged (tubed?) Zippy-Doo-Da or if perhaps Bloo had come within his proximity. He hopes it's the former, for Bloo's own safety.

 

 _I don't want them to capture Bloo_ , Danny realizes with clarity, _I think… if there's such a thing as a good ghost, then Bloo is one of them._

 

Zippy-Doo-Da snarls at him from behind the thick glass, cat-lips moving in speech that Danny can't hear even with his apparently modified ears. For some reason, though, he can just tell that the ghost is shouting in Esperanto, not English.

 

He tries very hard not to think about it.

 

"Oh, Danny; that reminds me," his mother turns away from her rapid shorthand to face him. The orange goggles blocking most of her face are just as unnerving as they've ever been. "You have a call waiting for you. We bought a new phone – the number is under the contact 'Valentine.'"

 

His father makes a noise of distress behind him, "Now, Maddie, are you sure that's a good idea?"

 

Maddie waves a hand, "Oh, yes it is. I think it's a great idea that Danny is making contact with more people like himself. Isn't that right, son?" Danny's positive that if his mother wasn't wearing the hood and goggles, she would have a suspicious twinkle in her eyes.

 

"Um, what do you mean 'people like myself?'"

 

"Shush, now! I've given you a good hint already; it isn't my secret to tell, anyways," she twists her mouth into a smile and turns away, "Go on now, Danny. Your phone friend is waiting."

 

Reluctantly, Danny climbs back up the lab steps and into the newly refurbished living room. He spots the shiny black phone in its new customary position by the couch. It looks like a fairly new model.

 

 _One great thing about having engineering and inventing parents_ , Danny admits, _is that any house damage can be fixed with stuff already lying around._

 

He fumbles with the phone for an embarrassingly long time, trying his best to figure out just where the menu command is that holds any saved contacts. It is nothing like the sleek new smartphones of today, but it also isn't anything like their old phone. This one is cordless, and the buttons are on the phone itself. It simply has a small charging dock which you must return the phone to once you're done. Danny wonders if it has a signal range, and how long it is.

 

 _Maybe,_ Danny thinks while finally managing to flip through the contact list, _I can have some 'privacy' when speaking to my phone friend. No more standing in one spot while a ghost rages for my blood._

 

Selecting the contact 'Valentine', the phone automatically dials the now slightly familiar number. Danny creeps from one end of the house to the other at a snail's pace, just in case his cordless phone goes out of range from its charger.

 

The phone rings quite loudly, so Danny pulls it far away from his ear as he slips into the garage. He doesn't bother flicking on the light; Sam was right, he can see well in the dark now. It's nothing like having vision in the light, but it is still efficient and effective enough that he can see every outline and darker shadow.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Hi, um… It's Danny." He picks at his nails, bringing the speaker closer to his ear just so that he can possibly hear extra details from the other side. There is the distinct sound of birds tweeting, and possibly running water, but that could mean anything.

 

"Why hello there, Daniel. Finally calling me back after that ghost fiasco? I was worried, you know."

 

Danny cringes, a little guilty. "Yea, sorry. I kind of… got kidnapped afterwards."

 

The other person makes a noise of interest, "And how did that work out for you?"

 

"Pretty good, actually. I got to hide out in a friend's house until I recovered enough to go home, but…" Danny hesitates. Did he really want to accidentally dump all of his problems all over this phone stranger… again?

 

"Did something else happen?" He thinks he can hear a panting noise, feet tapping on the ground in a jogging walk, and rhythmic _thump_ s of wood added to the mix of outdoor sounds.

 

"Hmm… Not much. Just… got yelled at again for dealing with ghost stuff." He doesn't feel safe enough to tell this person about the seemingly 'friendly' ghost that got him in extra trouble for closing the Ghost Portal. He wouldn't want this 'old friend' of his parents to go tattling on him.

 

"I see. Did they do anything particularly neglectful to you this time?" The person's voice is smooth, calming. But for some reason Danny can just imagine him cornering a child and demanding answers with sweet words and hollow promises.

 

He blinks away the imagery, sickness in his gut. "Well, no, I don't think so. My mom just gets… annoyed a lot, I guess, because I can uh… Get pretty gross and down in the dumps a lot." Ugh, there, he said it. Hopefully this person is perceptive enough to know what he means by 'down in the dumps.'

 

"That's no excuse for her behavior, but alright."

 

The rhythmic thumping sound and the padding feet stop as the stranger seems to have sit down, softly grunting as if in pain.

 

Danny doesn't know how to tell the person 'hey I can hear everything through the phone so what's up with all the noises?' so instead he starts a new subject of conversation.

 

"So, um… Was it you who called my parents and told them that there was a ghost attack at the house?"

 

A short and clipped 'yes' is his only answer. The man sounds like his breathing is a bit labored.

 

Danny imagines an old man hobbling around with a cane in the woods being stalked by a bear. He tries not to laugh. "Well, thanks, I guess. Does this mean you live in Wisconsin? What's it like there?"

 

"It is very… cold, at times. I would rather live somewhere warmer. Alas – my parents' house and land is still here, so I cannot simply abandon it."

 

"Oh, that sucks," Danny is becoming nervous. This person wouldn't yell at him for the next few questions, would he? Danny will just have to take the chance, "My mom said that the cube I used was a twenty year old prototype. And you knew how to use it."

 

"Yes, I worked on that invention with your parents… in college. We were quite a team." Danny can imagine that the sound of flesh pulling back is some kind of fond smile. But even he, with the weird hearing, can't tell the difference between a smile and a grimace.

 

 _Do it._ "So, does that mean your name is Valentine? That's what my mom put you in the phone as…"

 

Danny hears a loud, sudden _crack_ in the speaker, like something on the other side just broke. He hisses and jerks the phone away from his face, no longer relaxed and trusting of the other person not to make loud noises and hurt his sensitive hearing.

 

There is a snarl, which sounds like it's from some kind of animal, then the padding of feet again. Snuffling noises sound very close to the receiver.

 

_It that… a dog?_

 

"Daniel, what you just did was very, very rude. Your mother never had the right to tell you that name. And now I…" there is a pained sigh. More snuffling noises, this time accompanied by a very distinct dog-like whine.

 

Danny tries not to focus so much on the dog, more set on apologizing to the distressed person. "Oh… I'm s-sorry…"

 

…Wait a minute. Now than he thinks about it, Danny's heard that tone of voice before. Besides, why would this person react so badly to a name like that?

 

 _Of course_ , he mentally smacks himself, _now it's obvious what mom meant by 'people like me.'_

 

"That was your birth name, wasn't it? I don't know why my mom would do something like this. She did say that I should 'meet more people like myself.'"

 

There's a heavy pause, "So you understand? I suppose that the lecture I was going to give is unnecessary now. Daniel, could you do me a favor and change the contact name to 'Vladimir' instead?"

 

"Sure, no problem." And so he goes about tapping away at the buttons on the menu, mumbling about 'I don't know why she thought that was okay' and 'she could've just told me.'

 

"Done. So, is your name Vladimir, then?"

 

…No response. Danny can still hear the sounds of the outdoor Wisconsin. Mixed in is the panting of the dog that Vladimir apparently has.

 

"Vladimir?"

 

"Yes… but, please, call me Vlad. It is much more familiar," a sigh, "I apologize, Daniel, but I have become very tired. I must retire now."

 

"Oh, yea, of course. Did I do something to… make you tired?" Danny doubts it. Who would get tired from talking on the phone and sitting outside?

 

"No, no… It is not your fault. I am just fatigued easily from simple tasks."

 

 _Whoa, you and me both dude._ "Okay. Talk to you later, Vlad."

 

"Goodbye, Daniel."

 

They hang up. Danny stares at the sleek black phone in his hand, now dotted with his smudged finger prints.

 

_What a weird guy._

 

He makes his way back out of the garage and down the hall to the living room, placing the phone onto its charging dock with a soft _beep._

 

His father had apparently been waiting for him in the kitchen, because the only reason Danny notices his giant orange monstrosity of a parent is when he stands and yells, "Spaceman! How'd you like talking to V-man? He's a real hoot, ain't he?"

 

V-man? Well, now Danny knows that he isn't the only person to suffer Jack Fenton's terrible and embarrassing nicknames, "Fine, I guess. But what mom did was wrong, I think, with the name thing."

 

Jack comes to stand before his son, ruffling his hair with a small sigh, "I know, Danny-boy. I don't think that it was for the best, either. But, hey, does this mean that you two talked a little bit more about yourselves?"

 

"Yea, I guess we did," Danny has to concede. The conversation caused by his mother's meddling _did_ leave him with a rather large, important, and exciting revelation. Whoever Vlad is, he is at least somewhat like Danny. He is also an older person with more experience, meaning that maybe he would impart with some advice every now and again if Danny asks him to.

 

His dad slaps him on the back. Surprisingly, he doesn't immediately face-plant to the floor. "That's my boy. Now, come on! We have something even more exciting to show you in the lab."

 

For the second time that day, Danny finds himself being practically carried down the lab steps. Instead of being lead to the ecto-tube full of angry bike-cat ghost, he is sat on a hard stool in front of a metal table. On that table is… the soup can he used to carry in Middle school, but never actually opened.

 

He feared for his life. And the somewhat-cleanliness he'd adopted whilst wearing borrowed clothing.

 

"Um. I thought you guys threw this out once you realized I'd been carrying three year old soup in it?" Danny questions, looking at the thing with disgust. It looks like it'd been given a paint job, now instead of being just chrome it is silver with green. Danny realizes it is functioning with ecto-energy when the green wires pulse.

 

"No, silly, it's not the same one!" His mother unexpectedly ruffles his hair. The rubber gloves tug uncomfortably at his scalp. "This is the Fenton Thermos! It can trap up to ten ghosts in it at a time, no matter their physically appearing size or ecto-energy.

 

"Plus, we've installed a compatible Fenton Flusher onto the Ghost Portal. Now, you won't need to close the portal if a ghost is coming through. You just have to trap them in this, insert it into the Flusher next to the portal lever, and push them back through!" She grins down at her son, obviously waiting for some sort of emotional outburst that her son was prone to doing.

 

Danny looks at the glowing green invention with more interest. Trap ghosts? Does this mean that if he carries it around, there would be no need to play ring-around-the-rosie with malignant ectoplasmic horrors?

 

While he's examining the thermos, it makes a small clicking noise, its bright green tech becoming dim and lifeless. Maddie clucks her teeth from behind him.

 

"Oh, well. Our inventions do run off of ectoplasmic energy. This one just hasn't been charged in a while," she reaches over and unscrews the cap, placing it down even closer to the anxious Danny, "Well, go on and touch it if you want to, Danny. It doesn't work on humans, but you have nothing to be afraid of now that it's completely off."

 

Hesitantly, Danny reaches out to pick up the new device. It has many divots and canals on its surface where the lines of ecto-energy-converters run. He takes note of the button on the side, labeled easily for 'release' and 'capture.' He fingers the cap-less rim of it with curiosity at its insides…

 

The Fenton Thermos powers on with a whine.

 

Danny drops it like a hot cake.

 

His mom yells at him to be careful while his father picks up the glowing soup tin rolling freely on the floor with a confused expression. "That was odd. Could've sworn it didn't have any more energy left."

 

Danny feels his soul leave his body. He can see Zippy-Doo-Da snickering at him from its gooey prison.

 

His parents begin to bicker about 'possible irregular human ecto-signatures being probable substitutions for ecto-energy in times of crisis' as he sneaks his way back up the lab steps, careful to be as quiet as possible.

 

 _That was close_ , he shivers, _I might've ended up like Zippy-Doo-Da if my parents were actually smart enough to notice that their son is half-dead._

 

Something in his head gives way with a sound like nails screeching down a chalk board. He ignores it in favor of slight dissociation and temporary sanity.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

It's 1 a.m and Danny isn't even trying to sleep when the screaming alarms start from down in the lab. His parents shout; they'd been down there all day and had never gone to bed.

 

Danny curses as he hurriedly wipes away blood from picking, destructive hands with a discarded shirt from beside his bed, bolting up and rushing to open his door. He sees his sister in the same position in the hallway, only she's holding a medium sized ecto-gun charged and at the ready.

 

"No, Danny," she commands with a voice he's never heard from her before, sending a wave of apprehension down his back, "Stay inside your room. You're still injured."

 

"But-!" He can help! He's fought ghosts before; Jazz hasn't. Hell, his parents haven't – not like Danny has.

 

"No!" She shouts, causing her little brother to flinch and step back, "I said stay in your room."

 

With that, Jazz gives him one last hard look before she's running down the stairs and into the lab. Alarms are sounding throughout the house, encroaching on Danny's piqued senses.

 

His mind is seething with indignity and anger. What the hell just happened? He can help, he's not weak, and he is something more than his family would ever know!

 

A bright flash of light and searing pain from old injuries interrupt any rational thoughts Danny had left in his mind. Flashes of a _bodyless, bloodless, lifeless_ time incapacitate him as he floats, stagnant and glowing, in his white-haired and grey-skinned ghost form.

 

It takes him a few precious minutes to come back to himself, pushing away a screaming, lockjaw mind in order to remember that there are sounds of battle coming from the real world. He can't get himself stuck in his head like this every time he transforms; trauma or no trauma…

 

Danny's ghost body, surprisingly, gives into his silent commands when he fades through the two floors and down into the silvery chrome of the lab, now being painted with flashes of red from the emergency lights.

 

His intangibility is traded with the well-defined rush of invisibility as he hangs, silent and observing, in the corner of the room.

 

His parents just got done sucking a struggling Bloo into the Fenton Thermos.

 

 _No!_ His mind yells, _not Bloo! What did they ever do to anyone?_

 

But he doesn't move or speak or try to stop them as they chase after a second ghost, yelling and picking up more weapons. He can only watch and hope that no misfired ecto-gun hits him in his hiding position.

 

The unknown ghost is a swirling mess of dress trails that strike limbs and fling objects off of shelves. It has no discernible shape besides its octopus-like dress and an incredibly solid-looking green top-hat. Every now and again, it will make a whooping noise as its dress hits something incredibly accurately and knocks it flying, but other than that it is silent and quick with its attack.

 

" _Taste this, ecto-scum!_ " His mother shouts and pulls the trigger on some sort of rifle. It hits the specter, causing it to be pushed through the wall. When it doesn't immediately rebound, his parents and older sister start making for the stairs.

 

"Quickly – we have to capture it before it gets into town and attacks people!" Jazz shouts, one step ahead of her parents and probably loving it by the focused look on her face.

 

Danny is slightly horrified by the uncharacteristic viciousness displayed in his normally composed older sister. What had caused this change? Hopefully, it wasn't Danny's behavior over the last few weeks.

 

 _But for now_ , he decides, letting go of his invisibility to free his concentration and floating down to the now empty lab, _I need to get Bloo out of this thermos._

 

Apparently, the thermos had been dropped and forgotten by his rushing parents, as it was sitting innocently on the floor. Danny picks it up to examine the side, ready to press the button for 'release' once he finds it.

 

 _There it is!_ Danny pushes his finger in and unscrews the cap, allowing a burst of light accompanied by a slightly unexpected kick-back to occur. Bloo is shot out with incredible speed towards the wall, but they catch themselves in time, rolling and swirling in confusion.

 

"Hey, buddy!" Danny calls, capping the soup tin and placing it on the table next to him. He flies up with admirable control to meet the hovering Bloo just because he can, "Sorry about that nonsense. My parents don't like ghosts very much."

 

Bloo waves their hand with a little whispering moan, as if saying 'it's fine' or 'I don't blame you.' Danny smiles, thankful of his ghostly friend for being so chill and understanding all the time.

 

Zippy-Doo-Da knocks on the glass to Danny's left, an angry and harrowing expression on its face. Danny floats down and over, putting his hands on his ( _slim? This is weird_ ) hips and staring into the spook's face.

 

"No way am I letting you out, Zippy. You destroyed my house and attacked my friend! That isn't exactly 'lawful citizen' material."

 

The manifestation of ectoplasm snorts and paws at the glass with its remaining limb. Bloo floats up beside Danny, big white eyes roving slowly over the other spirit with interest.

 

The white ghost surprises him by placing a hand on the glass, turning its owlish gaze over to the ghost-boy with a sad expression.

 

Danny groans, "What? Bloo, come on, don't look at me like that. Why would I release a hostile ghost that's hurt people?"

 

Bloo keeps staring.

 

"Bloooo, _noooo…_ " Danny whines, partially covering his eyes.

 

Bloo stares.

 

" _Nmmmmgmmm._ " Danny's never had a pet, but he imagines this is what it would be like. Unable to say no to giant, milky eyes full of sadness and love.

 

Blood stares some more.

 

" _Nnnngh…_ _Fine!_ Fine, oh my god," Danny throws his lanky arms up in defeat, accidentally jolting his steady flight in the process.

 

Zippy-Doo-Da looks incredibly smug.

 

"Shut up," he says ineffectively as he drops himself to the floor and walks over to the control panel.

 

 _Let's see…_ The buttons are easy to identify and place for recognizable functions; they'd have to be if someone like Jack Fenton could ever use them. But when it asks for a password to complete the release procedure, Danny pulls a blank.

 

Stupidly, he types in 'FUDGE.'

 

A beep and a robotic voice sound, "Password accepted."

 

"Unbelievable," Danny shakes his head, staring at the device. Were his parents _really_ that idiotic?

 

As the tube drains its ectoplasm, Zippy-Doo-Da collapses in a dripping heap onto the floor, devoid of the buoyancy and glass wall keeping them upright. Danny isn't that nice of a person, and he's also incredibly and covertly scared right now, so he just stands back and watches the ghost.

 

When Zippy doesn't even try to get up, Danny becomes worried.

 

Bloo is apparently on the same page, as they begin to hover around the fallen spook with hands roaming the air in worry.

 

On the floor, Zippy-Doo-Da seems to be bleeding out more ectoplasm than it began with. Its legs don't look like legs anymore – just slowly enlarging piles of goo.

 

Danny hurries over to the second level door, inputting the password and DNA to open it. Thankfully, his parents had only locked him out of the portal door, and not any other parts of the lab.

 

Then Danny slaps himself in the face with a gloved hand once he remembers that he can literally _walk through walls_ if he tries hard enough.

 

"Stupid," he mumbles to himself, walking back over to the apparently destabilizing specter, "Okay, Zippy-Doo-Da – up and at 'em."

 

Zippy says something that sounds like ' _manĝi_ _galo'_ , but doesn't resist when the half-ghost picks them up and begins to drag their limp body through the lab and towards the portal.

 

"Ugh, this is _so_ gross. Do you know how gross you are right now?" A growl. "Of course you do. You better not come back once I shove you in here, you hear me pal? Go find a bike track to ride in the ghost dimension or something."

 

Danny is just managing to get the ghost to somewhat stand on its two feet and prepare to shove it through the swirling green portal when the sounds of someone arriving home reach his enhanced ears.

 

"Oh, crap!" Danny exclaims, jumping with surprise and wildly looking around, "Hurry up, Zippy, or we'll both end up in ecto-tubes!"

 

"Fuckn'… smarmy _halfas,_ " Zippy slurs, stumbling forward into the glow of the other dimension, "'ways gotta think they's right 'bout evrythin'…"

 

"Yea, I get it: I'm super cool, and you're not. Do we have to spend time establishing this, or can you leave already?" Danny snaps impatiently, shoving the slimy ghost forward.

 

Zippy turns around once and says " _Dankon pro_ _nenio_ " before disappearing into the light. Danny sighs in some relief, hard-pressed to get the hell out of dodge before his parents reach the lab again.

 

Who knows what they'd do to a random teenage ghost standing idly in the middle of what looks like an ectoplasmic massacre?

 

Thankfully, the still present Bloo has kept a level head, reaching out to the panicking Danny with one wispy white hand.

 

"Okay, Bloo. Let's get out of here." Danny grasps the offered limb, letting the more experienced ghost fly him through the upper floors so that he doesn't have a chance at messing up.

 

He and Bloo stop in the messy bedroom, apparently just barely avoiding the scientists from discovering them in the lab as Danny hears three cries of outrage and surprise.

 

They had noticed the mess that the escaping Zippy-Doo-Da left. And they were most likely not happy.

 

Danny couldn't wait for when they found the empty thermos as well.

 

Feeling both satisfied and physically worn out, Danny closes his eyes and even puts a protective hand over them as he focuses on transforming back. Quicker than he thought, the feeling of weightlessness vanishes and is replaced by a thumping heart, expanding lungs, and a more narrowed sense of hearing and awareness.

 

"G'night, Bloo," he yawns, collapsing onto his bed.

 

He falls asleep peacefully, for once, to the feeling of a soothingly cool hand brushing through his hair.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't understand why everyone hates Wes: He says he's attracted to Danny, and that he's straight. This means that he doesn't see Danny as a 'real boy' because he's trans. It's kind of like calling a trans person by their birth name; you aren't respecting them as people. Wes doesn't respect Danny as a boy in this way. Conclusion: Wes is a piece of straight boy trash and somebody is gonna kick his ass in the near future. Look forward to it.


	16. dead meat (sweet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Horror, violence, slight gore and body horror, mild injuries, symptoms of PTSD, conversational mention of physical abuse and eating disorders

 

Danny stares into the bathroom mirror as he slowly peels the plaster off of his cheek, wincing at the sting. There is a long stripe on blood on the white bandage, but the skin underneath is smooth and healed.

 

 _Good thing my parents are unobservant goobers,_ Danny thinks as he fingers the wound that had healed an entire week earlier than it 'normally' should, _or else I'd be in big, confusing trouble for every injury I brush off like it's no big deal._

 

But then the newly-crowned 'ghost-boy' remembers his older sister, proficient in the ways of 'Danny-stalking', and groans, flicking the used plaster into the trash. What in the world would she say to him? Would she say anything at all, or just stare unnervingly at him like some kind of puzzle she needs to figure out?

 

Danny sighs and vows to take a running start to the bus top. He can tell using his overactive hearing that all three members of his family are currently in the kitchen, meaning he'll be spotted as soon as he walks out the door.

 

 _Unless…_ Danny smirks lightly at the devious thought that just popped into his head. What if his parents never _actually saw_ their son walk out the door? Or, better yet, what if Jazz never gets to shove him into a car ride full of psychobabble and uncomfortable questions that he can no longer answer?

 

 _This might just work…_ Plus, he needed to feel productive and in control by proving to himself that he can at least somewhat efficiently use his new powers.

 

So Danny lays a hand over his eyes, blocking his view of the boy gazing back at him in the mirror, and concentrates on the coldness that sometimes pushes against his stomach and heart and lungs. It feels like brushing an arm up against a block of ice.

 

Only a few seconds pass before he feels a familiar weightlessness and unnerving lack of heartbeat in his ribcage before he can safely open his eyes without giving himself a panic attack. A white-haired, green-eyed boy grins confidently back at him from the mirror.

 

Operation: Sneak out as a Ghost – is a go!

 

Danny turns off the bathroom light and floats through the hallway, stopping to pick up his purple backpack from his room, making sure that it's strapped on tight to his ghostly body. If what he did to Sam the other day was useable (grabbing their hand and turning them intangible like himself by sheer physical touch) then his backpack _should_ follow his commands and not be a hovering visible object or stop him from walking through physical walls.

 

He slowly flies past the kitchen, stopping momentarily to listen in to the surprisingly heated conversation between his parents and Jazz.

 

"The ghost that closed the portal and set off the alarms was gone from the Fenton Thermos by the time we got back," his mother was voicing, one hand on her hip and the other wrapped around her chin in deep consideration, "And the ghost that we chased all the way to the fountain at the park disappeared into the water before we could apprehend it with our spare Fenton Thermos. Not to mention that the captured ectoplasmic subject in the lab was, somehow, set free with no damage to its containment unit."

 

 _Bloo closed the portal again? Is that why the alarms went off last night?_ Danny ponders, hovering close to the ceiling and accidentally bumping his head a few times.

 

"So, mom - what are you saying?" Jazz questions, sitting at the table with a book open in front of her. Danny can't see the title, but it looks like walls and walls of small text.

 

"What she's saying, princess, is that there might be several other ghosts that are unaccounted for. Aids who will take the time to free their ectoplasmic brethren when we aren't there to stop them," Jack informs, palming a strange new invention in his massive hands.

 

A small gasp, but it is quickly stifled. Jazz has a hard expression that is scaring Danny in ways that he can't begin to comprehend just yet. "Will Danny be safe? I honestly don't care about all of this ghost nonsense and you know it; I just want my depressed, defenseless, _neglected_ little brother to be able to sleep peacefully for once in his life!"

 

"Now, Jazz – "

 

"No, Mom! You've seen him this past few weeks; ever since he opened that portal –"

 

" _Danny_ opened the portal?" His dad looks shocked, his mom even more so. Their son, the one terrified of everything even remotely related to ghosts, had been the one to operate the Ghost Portal for the first time?

 

"Yes, he admitted it to me the night after the first ghost attack. You know – the one where you left him crying and bleeding all over the floor?" Jazz stands from her seat to lean forward and cross her arms at her parents, disappointment written all over her stiff form.

 

"But that's not the point! The point is: I think the ghosts know it was him who opened the portal. They've been coming through right and left since that day, and who is it that always has to deal with them? Danny. Doesn't that mean something to you two?" Jazz pleads, placing a hand over her heart and looking completely genuine in her statements.

 

When his parents only slump their postures and look shamefaced towards the floor, Danny decides that he's eavesdropped enough. He doesn't need a reminder that his parents' jobs (read: obsessions) were more important than their least-favorite child's wellbeing.

 

And not a moment too soon – the object that was formerly inoperable in his father's hand suddenly blares to life with a small whirring alarm and the robotic voice bank used for almost all vocal inventions at FentonWorks.

 

"Ghost within near vicinity. Please walk forward two yards."

 

 _Shoot!_ Danny concentrates all of his energy into adding intangibility to his invisibility at the same time, flying haphazardly towards the front door despite being able to go through any wall of his choosing.

 

He just makes it out of the house and into the air above his tall home when he hears his parents powering up their hidden ecto-weapons and his sister begin to run up the steps shouting 'Danny!'

 

He feels a little bit guilty for leaving without telling anyone, and he's sure that his sister will have a few heart attacks before making it to school, but…

 

 _All's well that ends well_ , Danny decides, flying to the alley next to the bus stop to transform again. He didn't really feel safe or confident enough to test his flight speed in the air, as the only way to do so was to get up high enough not to hit any apartment buildings around the town. He was afraid that he would transform suddenly, the white flash causing him to panic, and he would fall to his death on the pavement.

 

Well - to the _other_ half of his death.

 

_You know what, don't even think about it right now._

 

Danny agrees with his cautious and problem-avoiding mind as he steps onto the frightfully drafty and rattling bus. The driver barely even looks at him as he mumbles a small 'hello', picking a seat near the front to sit in. He can't help but be nervous; riding the bus used to be an option of lesser thought before high school. All of his former schools had been within walking distance.

 

The chattering noises of the kids on the bus drown out most of his other thoughts as his easily distracted mind can't help but pinpoint certain conversations. He gets to listen to a whole lot of sophomores complain about a very specific health assignment for most of the ride, and he can't help the feeling of annoyed dread accompanying it at his realization that he'd have to do the same assignment in a year's time.

 

 _If you're even alive in a year's time_ , his mind plucks invisible hands at his sensitive psych, daring Danny to breakdown in a public area.

 

He's distracted from his tumultuous thoughts when the bus takes a particularly hard turn, jostling the loosely secured backpacks into being held tighter by startled owners.

 

Danny, of course, being the epitome of a normal human, accidentally phases his hand through the bus seat, causing him to face plant into the blue rubbery coating with a grunt. One of his textbooks slides out of his transparent bag and slams to the dirty floor.

 

Several kids laugh distractedly, but none of them look too closely at the boy with his hand shoved through the seat and his head stuck in his see-through backpack.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny catches Dash's eye in the hallway between third period History and lunch, when everyone is putting their things in their lockers and taking out any food they might've brought along. A single, solidary nod is all he gets before the football player is joining the rest of the 'A-Listers' in their pack movement towards the lunchroom.

 

After Danny's horrendous (yet slightly enlightening; who knew that he could transform so quickly, and use his powers so easily if he just concentrated?) night full of _ghost shenanigans_ , his bruises and sickly look stood out more than usual. Some people even gave him a wide berth in the hallway, taking in his pale skin and red marks and dubbing him either physically ill or 'looking for another fight.'

 

 _That's fine by me_ , Danny thinks as he limps with the flow of the crowd to find his locker, _though I wish people wouldn't stare so much. So what if I look like shit? What the hell is new?_

 

If Danny were a _normal human_ boy with completely _normal_ pain tolerance and completely _normal_ body healing rates, he would have had to stay home due to necessity. However, as Danny is _not_ a completely normal human boy, going to school isn't as bad as it could be.

 

Danny can't help but momentarily consider his sister's sudden gung-ho attitude of ghost hunting. He wonders if she would have still reacted the same if she knew what Danny had become the day that he stepped into the portal.

 

Thoughts haunt him; nightmarish visions of his older sister chasing him through the house with a loaded ecto-gun, his parents waiting eagerly in the lab for his capture, brandishing antighost-serum coated scalpels and syringes full of poison meant to paralyze a ghost by freezing their ectoplasm just before the threshold of destabilization.

 

Then an equally disturbing thought; his sister lamenting on how he needed to be protected 24/7, locking him in his room with an active ghost shield around every corner, thus trapping him indefinitely…

 

…his friends and family being harmed or even dying by a ghost's doing, Danny perched in his tower as if he were the princess and not the dragon.

 

 _Jokes on her_ , he thinks bitterly as he closes his rusty locker with barely a finger raised. Which might have been a bad idea as Msr. Locklear gives him an odd look from their position standing in the Science room doorway.

 

… _No way_ , Danny watches the staring teacher from the corner of his eye, _do I have to act like everything is still normal? Like I didn't get electrocuted, die, and then come back as a half-human freak?_

 

Slowly, Danny raises his arm and shakes it, not even having to fake a pained expression as it jostles some of his burn wounds. Msr. Locklear looks away, seemingly satisfied that the weak, sickly, and underfed freshman hadn't suddenly gained strength overnight.

 

 _This_ , Danny decides with a dread in his chest, _is going to suck._

 

While he's distracted and staring intensely down the hallway, a hand grabs his shoulder.

 

 _Shit, it's behind me!_ He whips around, arms up in defense, ready to dish out some –

 

Kumar stands there with a wide-eyed and surprised expression, "Uh, hi… Danny… Sorry if I scared you…?"

 

"…Oh." Is all that Danny can say, arms still up as if he's about to pop the dark-skinned kid in the mouth, so he drops them awkwardly. "Hi, Kumar."

 

They chew their lip and look uncomfortable. "Can I talk to you, Danny? Just for, like, a second…"

 

"Uh, yeah, sure… I guess," _this feels weird_ , but Danny follows the freshman when they begin walking away.

 

A few minutes later of traversing through the hallways full of rapidly thinning crowds, Danny realizes that they were headed to the unisex bathroom by the office. He looks at Kumar with a new light. Could they possibly know about the hidden network of trans and non-binary kids helping each other out, no matter the social status?

 

"Hey, Kumar?" Danny tries to ask them if they need a pad once they slip into the bathroom, but the Indian whips around with an intense expression.

 

"It's Kumari, now!" They practically yell. Danny reels back, not used to the normally quiet student being so loud.

 

A few moments of silence before Kumari is breathing a bit heavily, clutching their dark curly hair with a fist, "Ugh, sorry. I'm just… a bit on edge right now. But could you call me Kumari, please?"

 

Okay…

 

"Sure, Kumari. So, what's this about, then?" Danny walks with them deeper into the bathroom, stopping to stare into one of two mirrors.

 

Kumari seems to be gathering themselves up, fighting anxiety and looking for bravery in their reflection full of tense posture and wary eyes, "I've decided… to transition to a girl."

 

Oh, so _this_ is what's going on… Danny had wondered why Kumari was always walking and speaking so timidly these past few months. He wonders how long it took them to want to transition. Not to mention the fact that the girl had been staring at him during class since day one.

 

"Am I the first one you've told?" Danny asks, pulling out his phone and selecting the contacts of the group chat with Kwan, Dash, Paulina, and Starr.

 

"No… Some of my friends know… but my parents don't." Kumari clutches at her clothes, which were just a plain red t-shirt and some black slacks. She looks distressed, so Danny tries to distract her the best he can.

 

"Well, here. These are the numbers for a uh… I guess you can call it a trans help line here in the school," Danny hands her his phone, which she looks at with an astounded expression.

 

"What? You have _Dash Baxter's_ phone number? _And_ Paulina Sanchez's? That's _amazing!_ " Kumari looks excitedly at the phone, quickly pulling out her own to copy the numbers down, "To think the A-Listers would be a part of something so… so _… Amazing!"_

 

Danny chuckles a bit, Kumari's excitement rubbing off on him. Now that he thinks about it, the 'A-Listers' were the original creators of this kind of system when the year began. The first day, they had gone around and scoped out all of the kids who could be trans, non-binary, or queer in some way, and added them to certain group chats full of like people.

 

 _No LGBTQIA+ club in the school my ass_ , Danny scoffs in his head, remembering Principal Ishiyama's words from months before, _if the school board won't do it, then the kids will, and it is ten times better than_ anything _they could create._

 

"I'm the pad kid," Danny informs, pulling Kumari out of the staring contest with her phone, "And I always have giant hoodies and sweaters in my locker if you ever feel like you need one to hide your body.

 

"Kwan is the 'I need a hug' kid. Sometimes he even brings Li, who is _amazing_ , by the way, he'll totally do your makeup for you if you ask.

 

"Starr is kind of like Kwan, but she usually doesn't show up unless you ask for her specifically. She will also do your makeup if you ask. If she's ever crying though, _run._ She will snot all over you. No, I am not kidding, don't look at me like that – it's happened several times before.

 

"Dash and Paulina are the muscle. If you need someone intimidated, socially ruined, tossed in a dumpster – you name it, they'll do it. They don't stand for discrimination in this school.

 

"So, yeah," he finishes lamely, watching Kumari practically hyperventilate with excitement, "Go ahead and text the group now and tell them you're in so that everyone gets your number. And don't worry if you feel like you aren't contributing or anything; they're just happy that _you're_ happy and safe."

 

Kumari bursts into tears of joy, grinning and waving her arms around. It freaks Danny out, because he feels like he's never had a moment like that – being so _not-sad_ that you cry.

 

"Y-you guys are s-so awesome! You're like… like…" She flings her chubby arms around Danny in a surprise hug. He resists the urge built by weeks of constant stress and no sleep to bodily throw her over his shoulders in a merciless suplex.

 

"Like _heroes_ or something! Oh, my gosh, I'm sorry… I'm just so happy…" She sniffs, narrowly avoiding wiping her snotty nose on Danny's jacket as she pulls back from the almost-turned-deadly hug.

 

"And, hey – I think that if you ask Paulina or Starr nicely, they'll hook you up with some clothes you might like," Danny adds because he's both a nice person and he's now incredibly uncomfortable with her shows of affection so he is battling the void in his chest with words.

 

Kumari flaps her hands and makes noises of excitement, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to keep you from going to lunch. I just…" More noises, this time of distress. "I just wanted you to know that I _stared at you all the time in class because I really admire you! I'm not a weird stalker I promise!"_

 

Danny halts his slow-inch towards the door out with astonishment.

 

"You… admire… me?" He asks haltingly, eyes wide as he takes in the vibrating and nervous girl in front of him.

 

"Well, yea, I mean…" She scrubs her hands over his upper arms, the motion repeated over and over, "You're one of the most out and about transgender person in this school. All of us who… aren't ready or just plain can't transition really look up to you!"

 

Danny balks at the information. He wants to laugh, or cry, or _something._ The feelings in his chest increase in pressure, but the adjacent emotional output never comes.

 

 _I guess I'm too much into my funk right now to feel so freely,_ he decides bitterly. Jealously bubbles up from the visage of the relieved, peppy, _cheerful_ girl. He squashes it fiercely; this is _Kumari's_ moment. A depressed kid with a troubled life isn't going to purposefully ruin it for her.

 

Danny fakes a pretty believable smile, if he says so himself, even managing to crinkle his eyes and keep his lips steady instead of twitchy, "Thanks! I guess… That means a lot." _More than I can ever show you._

 

The newly crowned trans-girl smiles back, fingers toying with a zipper bracelet on her thick wrist, "Okay. I think I'm uh… done being _dramatic_ now. You should go to lunch with your super intimidating friends!" Kumari giggles.

 

Danny must've missed a memo somewhere… "Wait, you think Sam and Tucker are intimidating?"

 

"Yup! It's why it's kind of hard to talk to you alone…" Kumari twists her face into a wry smile, "I think you should go now. That whole 'Freshman Student Almost Kidnapped on Casper High Campus' still runs through the town newspapers every now and again."

 

Sure enough, Danny's phone begins to vibrate. With the near constant intervals, he's guessing that he's receiving about one message every three seconds.

 

"Aw, rats." Now he's going to have to bat his two friends off with a stick at lunch…

 

The rapid zipping-noises of the stimming Kumari are partnered with more giggling, "See? Intimidating _and_ protective. You are a very lucky boy to have two people who love you so much."

 

Danny crushes his lips together involuntarily, making an effort to thwart any sort of heat from coming to his embarrassed face. He barely stops himself from brashly saying 'shut up'; Kumari has valuable information that he hasn't heard yet. Yelling and scaring her off due to his own mood swings won't help anything.

 

"I, uh… Yeah. I'm gonna go now." Danny scurries out of the bathroom with his tail tucked between his legs. The sound of giggles follows him, and he gets an eyeful of a smirking office secretary before he's shuffling down the empty hallway to the lunchroom double speed.

 

Danny breathes out a frustrated sigh when he reaches the lunchroom, ready to face the wrath of his 'intimidating and protective' friends, when he is stalled by the feeling of ice sliding up and down his throat.

 

 _Shoot!_ He almost forgot about the Ghost Lunch Lady! His friends must have been waiting with bated breath for him, wondering what the possible plan of attack would be.

 

Danny hides his next breath in the collar of his jacket. Puffy white clouds of water vapor curl into the air around his cheeks, but at least now no one would think he was secretly smoking in school. He quickly walks as casually as he can to the trio's usual lunch table, eyes darting around the room to observe everyone's behavior.

 

"It doesn't look like anyone knows that there's a literal ghost manning the kitchen for the past week and a half," Danny opens with as he sits, both of his friends blinking rapidly with their mouths open. Looks like he just barely avoided a berating session.

 

"I- No, which is weird, don't you think?" Sam sighs and places her face on her arm, bummed out about not yelling at Danny about 'keeping in contact so we know you're safe', "Also, how would the school not know that they hired a dead person to fix lunch every day? And do they just not care about the multitude of complaints coming from diabetic students who have to start bringing their own lunch or else they, oh I don't know, _faint in the middle of the hallway from low blood sugar?"_

 

 _Hm, someone's heated already_. Danny blinks as a few shivers go down his spine.

 

"Maybe it's the ghost's doing," Tucker pipes up, throwing his hand up in the air next to his head in a gesture, "Maybe they can convince other people that they aren't ghosts, or to overlook anything _ghostly_ that they do."

 

"You know what, I think that's a thing…" Danny hums, thinking back on the many many _many_ 'ghost lectures' he had to go through with his parents. If Sam and Tucker thought that their single 'ghost lecture' was boring, try being trapped at the dinner table every single night listening to them…

 

"Well, anyway. Are we gonna do this or not?" Sam temporarily pulls the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick out of her long messenger bag. It looks like a metal bat, only there's a slightly green film around the outside plating. It is the sign of hardened antighost-serum.

 

"Ugh, yeah, I guess we ought'a," Danny groans, leaning back from the bat with apprehension, "Just don't ever hit me with that. It'll hurt me in both forms."

 

"I have the Fenton Thermos, by the way. You forgot it in your locker before homeroom." Tucker raises the soup tin from under the table that Danny had swiped from his parents' lab, waggling it around with a pointed look.

 

Danny honestly could've just asked for the thermos, and his parents would've given him one quite easily, but he really didn't want to sit through an accompanying lecture, nor be questioned on his possible uses of the item.

 

"That's great, but how are we going to just waltz over to the kitchen without being caught?" Danny surreptitiously brings his friend's attention to the teacher on duty, standing near the back of the room sweeping their vision across every student. Among the students they are staring at especially hard is the tall Korean currently striding across the room.

 

"Doctor Hands On at 6 o'clock!" Sam whispers harshly, taking an angry chug from her green smoothie. Tucker whips out his PDA and pretends to looks busy while playing a simple game of Tetris – and losing horribly.

 

Danny chokes down a laugh at the nickname. He knew that naming 'Street Walker' that in his phone was a bad idea…

 

" _Ahgi!_ " Li Namguhng plops down next to Danny, throwing his arms around his favorite person, "Was it you who sent me that beautiful girl named Kumari?"

 

"Er, yes. I think?" Danny scrunches his eyebrows together. Did he say something about Li for no good reason in the bathroom? Oops.

 

Li chuckles, tossing long brown hair over one shoulder, "Thanks for your support, little man. Cuties like her are practically coming out of the woodwork now that you've passed around the news about the support groups."

 

"Uh… I have?" Danny doesn't remember ever talking about it with other people…

 

His friend clicks his tongue, admonishing, "Danny, _ahgi_ , really? You're not exactly a subtle person when you sneak off during class with pads and sweatshirts spilling out of those… _ridiculous_ pants of yours."

 

Danny feels heat in his neck and face, which he scrunches his shoulders up to try and hide, sheepish at being caught by apparently _everyone_ , "Oh. Great."

 

A hand with delicately painted turquoise nails rubs his shoulder, "Haha; you're so funny when you're red-faced like that, you know?"

 

Sam makes a growling noise, Tucker seemingly not interested in calming his irate friend down as he has his Maximum Bitch Face on.

 

 _That's not a good thing_ , Danny gulps. Catty Tucker always ends in flames…

 

"Listen, _Namguhng,_ " Oh boy… "We need to have a very important conversation with Danny. In _private,_ " Sam taps their black nails on the table impatiently. Tucker is being incredibly unhelpful by staring at his PDA, but not actually doing anything on it.

 

Danny sweats nervously, feeling Li shift uncomfortably at his side. Then, he has a wonderful idea. Hopefully one that doesn't leave anyone hissing and spitting at each other.

 

"Uh… Wait! Li," Danny turns to his confused friend, craning his head up an unfair amount in order to look him in the eyes, "We need your help with something. Do you think you can distract the teacher and, well, everyone else for the next few minutes?"

 

The Korean boy cocks his head, causing pretty dangling earrings to knock around with jangling noises, "Um. Sure, anything for you, _ahgi._ But, can I ascertain as to _why_ you need me to cause such a riffraff? The lunchroom is full of quite a lot of people. It could turn into a mess fairly quickly."

 

Danny nods hurriedly, "I know, but this is important. It will help me a lot if you would. Please?"

 

Li gazes steadily down at him with eyes full of… something that Danny still has yet to identify. After a few long seconds of staring, Li cocks his head to the side and shrugs as if the intense moment never happened.

 

"Sure thing, little man. Just let me trade my duds for something better for battle, alright? I've been more prepared when it comes to you these days, you know." The impeccably dressed boy mumbles something about 'stargazing turning into a _mud wrestling_ competition.'

 

Li begins by fingering loose his earrings, placing them into a small case in his bag. Then he toes off his dangerous high heels, hissing out unknown expletives and 'what's the fun if I never get to _stab_ anyone with these.' He even goes so far as to shake off his shimmery cardigan, placing all of his items in his black hole of a purse. Finally, he takes out a rubber band, tying his hair up into a messy bun.

 

"Done!" Exclaims the enigma with a crinkly eyed smile. Li Namguhng still looks like a rock-star even when he isn't decked from head to toe in fashionable items.

 

Sam looks pissed, Tucker looks resigned, and Danny looks impressed.

 

A hand scrubs through Danny's hair, interrupting his thoughts. He looks up curiously to the standing Li, unused to the boy's actual height.

 

"Wish me luck _, ahgi_ ," Li winks, sliding a purple phone with a heart charm out of his pink skinny jeans and pretending to take a call.

 

The trio watch Li as he walks, barefoot, over to the general area of the teacher on duty. Said teacher is giving the zany teen the stink-eye. Apparently, the teacher can't step in and make a student sit down unless they're doing something 'against the rules.'

 

Which is exactly when Li 'trips', throws his hands out, and topples a lunch tray sitting dangerously close to the edge of a table. The mushed up rice on top goes flying across the room, arcing beautifully in front of the incredulous faces of the freshman and sophomore years.

 

The plate splatters all across the heads and shoulders of the A-Lister's table.

 

…Stunned silence.

 

" _Who threw that!?"_ Dash Baxter stands from his seat, pinched fury donning his meaty form like a new varsity jacket. Speaking of, his appeared to be ruined.

 

A small shriek erupts from the freshman who was the main victim of Li's faked trip.

 

Dash takes that as a sign of the evil food-thrower, scooping porridge off of Paulina's angrily quivering shoulders. "Then I guess you won't mind if I give it back to you _, huh!?"_

 

The star quarterback lobs the food at the freshman's face, overshooting by a few feet. It lands in the hair of one of the archery members.

 

"Hey!" They yell, standing up as well, "Watch where you're throwing, dill-weed!"

 

They add to the fire by tossing a handful of green beans across the room, juice splattering everyone in between. They also overshoot, hitting another member of the archery team in the back.

 

"Whoops," the first archery member cries, "My bad, _babydoll!_ " By their tone of voice, they aren't sorry at all.

 

The second archery member stands, incredibly ticked off and embarrassed by the antics going by their red face, "Don't call me babydoll, you jerk!"

 

Several more insults are traded back and forth, some more food is thrown, and suddenly everyone and their cousin's problems are being played out in the middle of the Casper High lunchroom on a previously tired Monday.

 

"You said you wouldn't wreck my car if I let you borrow it, and what the hell did you do? _You wrecked my damn car!"_

 

"I'm only, like, two months younger than you. Don't call me babydoll!"

 

"Sure thing, _babydoll._ "

 

A scream of frustration.

 

"That was the last limited edition top on sale in Amity Park and you still bought it, Starr, even though you knew I wanted one!"

 

"I'm sorry, Paulina! I just couldn't resist. I'll let you borrow it tomorrow, I promise!"

 

Meanwhile; Danny, Tucker, and Sam are all hidden under their table, eyes wide in astonishment at the chaos they had unwittingly wrought. Who knew Casper High was so full of issues to be negotiated via school-yard violence?

 

"Every time there's a test, you _toss your cookies_ somewhere in the school! Don't look at me like that, Nathan – we all know it's you!"

 

 _Well, that was not information that I needed to know_ , Danny thinks with disgust.

 

He spends some time scanning the room for Li, wondering where the instigator of this hoi polloi uprising was.

 

"Come on, Danny, let's go!" Sam jerks on Danny's arm, almost causing him to fall flat on his face.

 

 _Well, wherever he is, he's probably in smack dab in the middle of it,_ Danny decides, crawling across the floor towards the back of the lunchroom where the door to the kitchen is. Surprisingly, no one gets hit with any flying food on their journey there.

 

Danny somehow ends as the conductor of the floor train, so he uses one hand to push open the door, sitting crouched to the side as his two friends crawl in front of him.

 

The feeling of safety never comes as the three stand when the door closes, the _click_ of the single exit lock sounding foreboding in the chilly silence of the kitchen.

 

"Nothing's on," Tucker points out, shivering lightly from both fear and the chill, "Now that I think about it, the lunchroom has been pretty cold lately without all of the extra stoves and slow cookers going."

 

"Hmm…" Sam hums, running a critical eye over the open area, "What did you say this 'lunch lady ghost' looked like again, Danny?"

 

Sam receives a startled shout in response, whirling around to see a bright green light seeping into the room.

 

The ghost had arrived.

 

"Hello, children," an echoing, creaking voice erupts from the malformed and rapidly stabilizing vision of green in front of them, "Are you here for lunch? You're quite naughty for not waiting in line like the rest of the students."

 

"Uh… Sure?" Tucker says uncertainty, bringing his arms up in a shrug.

 

"No, wait," Sam throws an arm out, stepping up to the floating ectoplasmic being with narrowed eyes, "You should be ashamed, ghost! You've ruined lunch for all of the students here. Your antics have burdened those who cannot eat a staple diet of only vegetables. It is unhealthy for them, and causes stress on the student body!"

 

The now completely formed lunch lady reels back as if struck, horror on its green face, "What? _What!?_ _How dare you say that to me, ill-informed husk!"_

 

A screech slices through the previously edgy silence of the room, green flames roaring to life on the stagnant gas stoves. The noises of the food-fight outside the room don't slow, meaning that hopefully no one has yet noticed the raging ghost dangerously close to half of the school body.

 

Danny finds himself wanting to hit Sam on the back of the head. You don't talk back to possibly unstable ghosts like that!

 

"Sam, idiot, don't yell at a ghost and expect it to be reasonable!" Tucker yells _for_ Danny's unsaid thoughts, looking like he himself would hit Sam if he wasn't in danger of being burned alive right now.

 

"Hey – Danny said it seemed reasonable before! I thought maybe we could talk it out!" Sam tries to defend themselves, strapping their bag solidly to their shoulders and pulling out the metal bat.

 

Wind – or maybe some kind of supernatural telekinesis, Danny can't tell – begins to tug at the kids, yanking objects from shelves and cupboards with frightening speed. The captured foodstuff swirls around the floating lunch ghost, creating a sort of barrier and an arsenal of throwing objects.

 

"Shit," Danny curses, burying his face into Sam's back, "Just give me one second to transform!"

 

And he does transform, startling his two friends with the bright flash of light that erupts from behind them. A white haired boy leaps into the air, catching himself in flight at the highest point.

 

"Hey, lunch lady!" Danny yells, face set in determination that Sam and Tucker balk at, "If you won't consider changing the menu, then perhaps you should send in your resignation before _I_ do it for you!"

 

A scream of outrage reverberates from the spook, followed by several items being thrown. Danny uses his new grip on basic flight to loop around and dodge them.

 

"A little consideration for those who can't fly, please!" Tucker shouts from behind him, overbalancing while trying to dodge a tossed sack of flour and falling on his butt.

 

"Whoops, sorry Tuk," Danny rubs the back of his head in guilt. For his trouble of turning around to check on his floor-bound friends, he is conked in the shoulder with a packet of frozen vegetables.

 

Danny recovers, twirling around to face the amalgamation of food. "Okay, I guess you _want_ to be fired then," he snarks, feeling the not-heat building in his right palm. Green vapor encases his lower arm as he dodges more thrown objects.

 

" _Naughty children don't deserve to choose their own calorie intake! Adults know best for a child's health!_ " The ectoplasmic horror yells, throwing grease onto one of the gas flames. It erupts into an acid-y fireball, spitting boiling green blobs onto the three children.

 

"Ugh!" Sam swipes at a few of the blobs with the anti-creep stick, sending them back into the depths of the kitchen for some poor sob to find later, "Can we hurry this up please?"

 

Danny nods, throwing his arm out palm-up to deliver a plasma ball to the angry ghost's face, "Eat your _greens_ , ghost!"

 

The lunch ghost was seemingly so enraged and unaware that the green ball of ectoplasm slams right into its eyes, sending it careening back and through the wall. The manipulated kitchenware follows its translucent descent, breaking down the door with the force of many metal, wooden, and edible objects.

 

"Oh, great," Danny groans as screams of the students in the lunchroom sound through the busted open door, "Now everyone knows there's a ghost fight going on."

 

"Dude, it'll be fine," Tucker reassures as he holds up the Fenton Thermos, "It's gotta be nearly down and out with whatever you just hit it with, so just take this and we'll be done before you know it."

 

"Yea, I guess you're right. Come on, Sam. We might need that bat some more to –"

 

Danny's interrupted when a snake-like appendage slips around his middle, squeezing tightly as he's ripped through the broken kitchen door. He yells in surprise at the speed as he's tossed across the lunchroom. He gets a bird's eye view of scrambling students and a roving green light before he's colliding with a warm body against a wall.

 

" _Oof._ " Danny bats away the sausage trail that was the nabbing and flinging culprit, sitting up from the pile of limbs he found himself in, "What…?"

 

A strangled gasp. Danny looks up into the eyes of a rapidly paling Li.

 

"G-g-ghosssst…" Li moans, breathless, as he passes out, falling sideways limply with rolling white eyes.

 

Still crouched across his friend's body, Danny feels a little bit stunned. Could Li really not recognize Danny in this form?

 

"Dan- Uh, _ghost boy!_ Are you okay?" Sam and Tucker are running up to him now, both carrying Fenton weapons as the gravitational pull of the Lunch Ghost begins to pick up food trays around them, seemingly dragging them down the hallway in the direction of the retreating spirit.

 

"Um, yea – I think I am…" He floats up and off of his unconscious friend, face pensive, "Do I really not look like Danny Fenton when I'm like this? Or is it just the white hair and floating thing that's throwing people off…"

 

Sam shifts, equally as nervous as Tucker at the question. They both share a look. "Well, you do look… Um…"

 

Sam sighs, " _You_ look like an angry ghost boy with a broad chest and swinging fists. Danny _Fenton_ looks like a sad, tired puppy with a physically abusive home life and anorexia."

 

Tucker nods, finally, "Yeah, you do look really angry whenever you're all… ghostly like this. Have you seen your eyebrows? They're, like, constantly pulled down."

 

The half-ghost hovers, literally, in uncertainty. He looked… scary?

 

Trying to make light of the situation, fearfully aware of the enemy they had just set loose on the school, Sam tugs at Danny's white gloved hand. "Hey, at least no one will mess with you like this. You look like you're ready to kick ass and take names."

 

A breath. The glowing, floating boy rubs his stomach where he was squeezed mercilessly by weenies just minutes before. "I guess so. Come on, team; we need to go catch that ghost before it force feeds somebody a zero calorie salad or ties everyone up to lecture about the 'obesity epidemic.'"

 

Danny flies faster than he's ever gone through the hallways, which is approximately the same as the running speed of the two humans beneath him. He finds that he has the best balance and turning control when he keeps his arms out and level with the front of his body, but the most speed when he leaves them pinned to his sides.

 

 _I can experiment some other time_ , Danny decides when he leaves his arms up front clenched in fists waiting to pummel the wayward ghost, _right now I should focus on being cautious and on guard –_

 

A meaty fist slams into his side, earning a grunt of surprise and pain from the flying teen. He spirals downwards with a yell, breaching the floor and going straight though in surprised intangibility.

 

Being underground was weird, but Danny quickly got his bearings in the darkness. Flying where he guessed was up, he soon finds himself above ground once more. Danny watches in dismay as Sam beats the ghost covered in meat ineffectually with the creep stick.

 

"I'm not fat because I eat too much snacks and processed foods!" The vegan yells, thwacking the meat-made ghost with anger, "Your view of human diets is outdated!"

 

The meat monster howls incoherently, throwing its giant arms out and bowling Sam and Tucker to the floor.

 

Danny rolls his shoulders, readying his fists for punching, "How about you fight me instead – the dead don't need faulty dietary advice!"

 

The ghost boy delivers a solid punch to the side of the meaty-ghost's face, knocking it to the floor and uprooting its solid flesh platform. Two glowing green feet are exposed, kicking wildly in the air.

 

 _Jackpot_ , Danny crows as he grabs the rapidly deforming ghost-tail, "Come on out of there – too much meat is bad for you. You should know; you are what you eat!"

 

With that, Danny tugs with all his might. The ghost is easily pulled out of their meat encasing, clawing at their collapsed meat shield with a snarling face.

 

"Wow. That was easy. Hey, Tuk, toss me the thermos, quick!" Danny calls back to the friend who was stiffly picking himself up off the floor.

 

The surprising part comes when Danny is smashed in the head with a frying pan, going down like a dead weight as he falls to the floor. The flash of white is lost to Danny's vision when he closes his eyes tight in pain.

 

" _Danny!_ " Twin cries of distress come from behind him. He wearily pushes himself up, turning around to see his two friends encased in wiener-lines acting like sentient ropes.

 

"Ugh…" Danny groans, pain flaring from his old and new injuries, ectoplasm mixed with blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

 

...but he doesn't have time to examine the differences of internal bleeding between his ghost and human forms.

 

"Come on, transform!" Danny keeps urging the coldness of his core to flood him with ghost powers once more, but he can't seem to reach it all the way. _Just a little more!_

 

He is knocked to the side with a frozen lump barreling into his stomach, getting thrown into the depths of the freezer they were fighting next to. Several boxes fall onto his head, earning a sarcastic 'ow' and a few impossible squawking noises from the re-animated chicken carcass.

 

He angrily kicks the clinging chicken across the metal shelves of the room, attempting to stand up without knocking anymore boxes on his head.

 

"Why did the chicken cross the road," Danny grumbles in frustration as he finds himself suddenly fighting off a small poultry army, "To get to the other _side!_ " He punts a chicken directly out the open freezer door in a wonderful arc of bird-like warbling.

 

Danny hears a surprised 'ow!' and a 'is that a fucking zombie chicken?' coming from the hallway before the Fenton Thermos is bouncing around haphazardly in the doorway.

 

That's _it!_ Danny's rabid meat-beating mania must've hit Tucker, causing him to drop the thermos while he was hoisted in the air by slithering flesh snakes!

 

Danny cringes briefly at the incredibly weird turn of events his mind had taken while fighting his way through the poultries hobbling around, reaching for the thermos and hiding himself behind the door jamb. He briefly looks out beyond the doorway to pinpoint the main adversary's location.

 

 _One… two… three…_ "I hope you ordered soup for lunch, Lunch Ghost!" Danny shouts as he spins out into the open, flicking the switch on the open thermos to 'Catch' and pointing it at the floating specter.

 

Working like a charm, the thermos whirrs to life with a green glow, sending a spiraling blue beam towards the ghost. It screams out many meat-laden expletives as it is sucked into the tiny vacuum-like device, foodstuffs dropping from the ceiling and walls without the support of the supernatural control.

 

Two humans are also dropped to the floor, one landing unsteadily on her feet and the other on his butt for the second time that day, " _Owch!_ A little warning next time, Danny? Do I have to remind you that we can't all _fly?_ "

 

Danny caps the thermos and turns to his two friends, completely blameworthy for their fall, "Whoops. Sorry, Tuk. Again."

 

There's a few minutes of silence as the three friends somewhat stoically watch the chaos of foodstuffs littering the hallway, even hearing a few screams from around the school as teacher's hoping for a quiet Monday come across sites of destroyed school property.

 

"I feel like we're forgetting something…" Danny hums, rubbing away the green and red nosebleed before someone unawares walks by and sees it.

 

The trio all startle at once as they hear a familiar voice frantically calling Danny's name echoing through the hallways.

 

"Li!" Danny yells back, whirling around in his spot as he debates which hallway to run down first, "Li, I'm over here!"

 

"Danny!?" Li Namguhng comes flying around a corner, sliding through a mountain of meat with a perplexed expression, "What the – _Danny!_ There you are!"

 

Li picks his squishy way through the battlefield, still barefoot and now hating it by the repulsed look on his face. "You three – are you okay? I had no idea if you were in the lunchroom or somewhere else, all I remember is that big green ghost tossing tables around and yelling about dietary restrictions and then.. then…"

 

His breath stutters, face turning to the side with paling features. Danny reaches up to grab his shoulder in reassurement, secretly knowing of just _who_ and _what_ caused Li's sudden fainting spell. "It's okay, Li. I'm sure you're not the only one terrified of the ghost attack."

 

The Korean boy sighs, looking down at his friend with a small smile full of fake comfort, "Of course, little man. Come on baby kiddies – they've called a meeting in the gym to count heads. I've swept every hallway but this one."

 

The freshmen allow the trembling sophomore to herd them to the other side of the school, covertly passing around the weapons in order to shove into Sam's large messenger bag and out of sight.

 

Danny tries his best not to limp or clutch his aching stomach and sides, but he can tell that he fails in his acting when his friends stare at him worriedly. Li probably just thinks that the boy's injuries are from the fight with Zippy-Doo-Da, so he says nothing as he stews in his prolonged guilt.

 

They reach the lunchroom to find a cacophony of voices, several teachers standing on the stage and waving their arms around in an attempt to maintain order. It isn't working; the students are all too worked up and shivering in apprehensive exhilaration to cease their rapid information passing now.

 

"Did you see it?"

 

"Yea, it was huge! It looked like my great aunt when she's at the grocery store heckling the employees into giving her a discount."

 

"No, not the first ghost. The other one!"

 

"What?"

 

"Didn't you hear? There were two ghosts today."

 

"I saw it! They were fighting each other in the hallway. It was awesome!"

 

"It looked kind of cute, you know?"

 

" _Ew_ , don't say that, it's dead!"

 

"So? I can admire a dead guy if I want to! You do it all the time."

 

"Uh, yeah? Dead celebrities, not floating ghost boys!"

 

"Same difference."

 

Sam, Tucker, and Danny all share a bewildered look. What the heck were these people talking about?

 

Li interrupts their silent screaming contest by nudging them with his arms, "Come on – we need to show one of the teachers that you three are the last ones found."

 

So the four students part the crowds, Li walking with Sam in front as the two tallest while Tucker and Danny hang as the caboose.

 

Danny hisses in pain occasionally at the numerous elbows and shoulders he receives, but thankfully no one notices above the noise.

 

"Mr. L, found them!" Li calls, waving one bruised and bandaged arm above the crowd closest to the stage.

 

Mr. Lancer frowns at the flippant attitude, marking three names off of his list, "Thank you, Mr. Namguhng. Now, would you _please_ go find some shoes to put on your feet; we don't want _another_ student uprising, now do we?"

 

The English and Writing teacher raises a fuzzy black eyebrow down at the sheepish student, catching the sophomore in his innocent act. "Who, me? I didn't cause this. Nope. Definitely wasn't me."

 

With a light pat on his three temporary charges' heads, Li flits off to be one face of many in the crowd. Danny rolls his eyes with a smile, glad that Li didn't stick around to try and interrogate the amateur team of ghost hunters.

 

 _Li must know that we caused that distraction for a reason_ , Danny leans into Sam's side to avoid the constantly shifting crowd, _hopefully he won't ever connect the ghost boy and us, though._

 

Danny doesn't know what he'd do if Li was ever truly scared of him.

 

"Um, hey, Danny? You have ectoplasm all over your back."

 

Danny cranes his head at Tucker's insistence, looking down and over his shoulder to see a dripping film of glowing green.

 

"Well, whaddaya know," Danny sighs apathetically. Just another day in the life of Daniel Fenton, he reassures his fussing friends.

 

The gym doors burst open with a loud _bang_ , causing a wave of students to scream and jump back.

 

"Hi, kids!" A frighteningly familiar voice calls, "Don't you worry anymore – we're professionals! Real ghost hunter extraordinaires!"

 

"Fire." Danny folds his hands together, tilting his deceptively serene face skyward and closing his eyes as if in prayer. "Hellfire."

 

"Hi, Jazzy-pants!" His father found his sister. Like a spider to a bug caught in its web.

 

"Hey, Danny-boy!" Jack booms from only a few feet away, having shoved his way through the crowd to follow his 'one of many stupidly named inventions' as Sam would call it, "This here Fenton Ghost Finder is telling me that _you're_ a ghost!"

 

"Jack, Danny isn't a ghost." Maddie Fenton sidles up to her husband, both of them peering avidly down at the beeping device.

 

"Ghost within near vicinity. Please walk forward three feet."

 

His parents look at the device, then at their son, then at the device, then at their son…

 

"Aw, rats. Darn thing is broken again," Jack rumbles, shaking the invention roughly.

 

"Uh, um… well… I kind of touched the ghost?" Danny tries, turning sideways to show his parents his glowing back. Suddenly, the boy has a small hole in the crowd where he stands, students all taking one big step backward.

 

Seriously? No one noticed his ectoplasm-coated back _before_ his parents forced him to point it out?

 

"Hm, he's right, Jack," his mother rubs her chin, hoisting her flame-thrower looking device up higher on her hips, "Come on, honey. We better sweep the school and assess the damage described by the principal when she called us over."

 

"Right you are, Maddy!" Jack exclaims, hurrying to follow his wife out the gym doors.

 

Uncomfortable silence follows their departure, most of it aimed at the youngest Fenton standing in the middle of a crowd gap.

 

"Danny?"

 

"Oh, great. Three out of three," Danny groans.

 

"Danny, when… how did you even get to school?" Jazz asks worriedly as she runs up to her short brother, scanning him for injuries and gawking at his glowing contamination of a back, "And how uh… how did you get ectoplasm all over you?" A sniffing noise, "Is that _chicken?_ "

 

Danny groans, faking (sort of – he feels like he got tossed around. Which he did get tossed around. God, how is he ever going to survive this?) exhaustion as he folds his body onto his sister's stomach, "I want to go home."

 

Sam places their messenger bag containing the captured ghost in Danny's outstretched hand, the rest of him being used to distract his sister into cooing and rubbing his shoulders. He stays as quiet as possible, not willing to blow his cover by telling her 'stop that, it hurts.'

 

"Of course, Danny. I'll just go sign you out. I'm sure they'll let us go now that our parents are here…" Jazz lifts her head, catching the principal's eye. Ms. Ishiyama nods in assent, because apparently the two are buddy-buddy enough for freakish telepathic communication.

 

"Sorry Sam, Tucker, but I don't think I can get you two out as easily as I can us…" Jazz tells Danny's friends, head bowed slightly in apology.

 

"Oh, it's no problem Jazz," Tucker waves a hand, "We're fine. Danny got scared when the ghost touched him, though, so maybe you should take him home _quickly_ and let him _rest._ "

 

 _Ideally; let me rest_ alone _in my room without disturbing me_ , Danny imagines furtively, already concocting a plan to sneak into the lab and dispose of the captured Lunch Ghost via the Fenton Flusher. That is if no ghost had come out of the portal and was tearing apart their house as the entire Fenton family resided at the school.

 

"That sounds like a good idea," Jazz mumbles, rubbing her brother's shoulders and practically carrying him to the exit, "He'll be back in school tomorrow, don't worry."

 

"Oh, we won't!" Sam calls, smirking and waving at the blushing Danny still clinging to his sister. The crowd parts for them, watching the 'scared kid' be babied by his older sister.

 

 _Ugh_ , Danny silently sighs in resignation, _I'm never going to hear the end of this now. So much for 'being admired.'_

 

Danny pretends not to panic when a phone light flashes just inches from his body via the Newspaper Club, most likely taking photos of Danny's green coated back for the paper. But the half-dead boy can't keep it together for long, the stress of the fight and white flash encroaching his senses by the time the embracing siblings reach the parking lot.

 

 _Don't forget to breathe_ , Danny's mind reminds him, _you're not dead. You're not dead!_

 

The young boy ends up collapsed and sobbing into his sister's arms anyway, unable to fight off the visions and flashbacks of his unexpected and terrifying death in the portal.

 

Jazz takes this as it is – a panic attack. She finally gives in to her urges and picks her brother up, carrying his short-breathed and trembling form to the car.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny wakes up some hours later to find himself laying in his bed, ruined jacket gone and shoes placed neatly by his door.

 

Surprisingly, Bloo is laying next to him, hovering a scant few inches off of the bed sheets. They look more physically formed than Danny has ever seen them before, leading him to finally recognize the clothing the mouth-less being has on.

 

A nurse's uniform...

 

"You were a nurse?" Danny observes, staring at the embroidered words on the breast pocket of the white shirt, "What does... _Kinderkrankenhaus_ mean?"

 

A soft sigh of wind, Bloo's white form wavering slightly as they tickle Danny's nose playfully with a finger.

 

"Hehe, hey. What was that for?" Another whispering of wind, this time with a few 'lool-ing' sounds added to the mix. "Okay, okay. I'll figure it out myself.

 

"So, I know that Kinder has something to do with kids, because 'kindergarten.' _Haus_ probably means house or something, because German is funny like that."

 

Danny hums, inspecting Bloo's nurse uniform with interest, "I get it – you were a nurse in a Children's hospital!" He exclaims, sitting up and wincing at the pain in his stomach, "Also; you're German. Or, at least - you were _in_ Germany at some point."

 

Bloo floats upward and off of the bed, 'lool-ing' as they go. Danny takes that as a sign that he should get up, too, sliding himself to the floor with some difficulty.

 

"How d'you feel about shoving me through some floors again, huh? For old time's sake?" Danny waggles his eyebrows, retrieving the Fenton Thermos from Sam's bag placed neatly on his desk chair.

 

 _Thank god Jazz didn't snoop inside_ , Danny mentally sighs in relief, _I guess she can only poke through my stuff with a clean conscience._

 

Bloo's soft white form wavers as he places two cold hand on Danny's shoulders. Slower than the other times the nurse ghost shoved him through the floor, the two ectoplasm-filled beings float silently through the house, dropping two floors within a few seconds.

 

Danny drops heavily onto the metal ground of the second level in the lab, apprehensive of the still-open portal pulsating with ecto-energy in front of him. "Thanks, buddy. Mind sticking around? I'm kind of tired and don't trust myself to be able to fade through the floors by myself."

 

A whisper of confirmation. Danny tentatively edges towards the portal, unsure of his current safety. What if Jazz was right about the ghosts on the other side sensing Danny and coming through? What if when he got too close, a ghost would pop out, say "Boo", and Danny would be out for the count, having expended his powers fighting the Lunch Ghost today?

 

Shaking his head to clear it, then blinking back spots as it does the exact opposite, the half-ghost quickly shoves the Fenton Thermos into the circular holding device next to the Fenton Flusher. It takes a few seconds to load the ghost energy before the screen lights up with a large font 'OK!'

 

Danny grips the lever, swallowing the bile forming in his throat, and pulls it down. The portal erupts in blue light, a distant echoing scream sounding as the Lunch Ghost is, presumably, emptied from the soup tin and 'flushed' into the Ghost Dimension.

 

A few moments of tense silence leads Danny to realize that the DNA scanner his mother threatened to put on the Ghost Portal was never installed. His hands itch to close the portal – but the repercussions would be steep. The alarms would sound, his sister would come running, and his parents would yell at him for closing the dangerous portal again.

 

Bloo decides for him, a white hand reaching over and swiftly yanking the lever to the portal up. The hole closes with metal teeth clamping down covered in painted caution lines.

 

Danny's mouth falls open, ready to yell at the ghost for being reckless and "Do you wanna get sucked into a thermos again?" when it dawns on him that the alarms never sounded.

 

...Huh. So more than one thing changed between the last ghost attack and now.

 

"Okay..." Danny mumbles, grabbing the thermos and capping it again, "How did you know?"

 

Bloo goes 'bloo' - _which is really eloquent, thanks for nothing_ \- before grabbing ahold of Danny's shoulders and hoisting him up through the floors once more.

 

Halfway between floors one and two, the Fenton Thermos is wiggled out of his hold. He squawks in indignation as he is left on the first floor while Bloo flies away to his room with the thermos in hand, waving cheekily as they disappear up the stairs.

 

"Freaking _ghost shenanigans..."_ Danny grumbles, alerting his sister who was sitting on the couch reading a textbook.

 

"Oh, Danny. You're up? Are you hungry? I made some spaghetti."

 

Without waiting for his answer, Jazz stands and walks to the kitchen, getting out a few pairs of utensils and napkins and popping a bowl of food made earlier in the day into the microwave.

 

Danny grumbles some more, "Of course they were a nurse. This explains _everything._ "

 

"Hm? Who are you talking to?"

 

"No one, Jazz."

 

Danny swears he hears an airy, echoing laugh from upstairs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [guzzles ectoplasm and ignores homework] wtf the fuck are you looking at
> 
> Kumari is autistic. I hope you like her because I've been building her true arrival since, like, 'cant say hello without hell' or something. She wanted to befriend Danny earlier, but she was scared off by his axe-murderer eyes.
> 
> L(esbian) G(ay) B(isexual/romantic) T(ransgender) Q(ueer) I(ntersex) A(sexual/romantic/gender) In case you're confused at the extended acronym.
> 
> Bloo is love Bloo is life. Bloo was a child's hospital ward nurse in Germany, what year I wonder? You'll probably never find out because Danny will never find out because Bloo only speaks in 'lool'-language as I'm calling it. They were also probably an older sibling at some point, or maybe even a parent?


	17. box lording over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Horror, violence, extreme body dysphoria, dissociation, symptoms of PTSD, panic attacks, violence

 

As per usual in the Fenton household, Danny wakes up in the morning to something grade-A weird happening.

 

This time, he ends up on the roof.

 

"Bloo," he groans at the hovering specter, barely visible in the early sunlight, "How the heck did I get up here?"

 

Bloo shrugs their soft white shoulders, being as unhelpful as ecto-physically possible.

 

"…Great. Just… fan-freaking-tastic," Danny yawns, already shifting through his mind as to how he would get back into the house without giving his sister a heart attack.

 

 _Or giving my trigger happy parents a reason to shoot_ , he muses, sitting up from his rough bed of cement. He had even somehow managed to float straight up and through the half-finished Ops Center…

 

There was planned to be a door going from the very top of the building back down into the Ops Center, leading to the second floor, but it hasn't been made yet. So Danny was, essentially, stuck on the roof with no way to safely get down.

 

Well, _humanly_ safely. Danny could think of quite a few things he could do to get down in _ghostly_ ways.

 

"Did you do this or did I do this?" Danny turns to his nurse ghost friend in question. He only receives a vague little 'lool' in response, but from Bloo's generally innocent mien, Danny is banking on his own half-ghost powers acting up sometime between when he fell into fitful sleep at 5 a.m and now.

 

…Whenever _now_ is.

 

"God help me if I'm late and 'disappeared' from my room again," Danny rubs a sore arm littered with cheap blue and green band-aids over his tired and bruised face.

 

A cold hand cards through his hair, suggestions abound in the single 'lool' sounded.

 

"No, Bloo. I can't just use another ghost to start fading through floors. What if someone's in the room when I just suddenly appear?" Danny throws his bare limbs into the air, regretting it spectacularly when his stomach injuries act up.

 

"Remember last time, when you phased me up from the lab and left me to the wrath of my sister? She could've been looking up from her ridiculously psychological book and saw me 'ghosting' around!"

 

Bloo looks thoroughly chastised now, even going so far as to become invisible.

 

"Yea, you better… er, run." Danny shakes his fist at the sky like an old man yelling at a cloud. Several birds fly overhead, cawing almost mockingly down to the stranded youth.

 

 _Well,_ Danny mentally prepares himself, _better get a move on, then._ _Here's to hoping that no one is trying to peek on top of the Ops Center right now._

 

Danny presses his eyes shut tight, transforming with a flash of light. The coldness of his core spreads throughout his body until he is still and weightless, forming a fully ectoplasmic being.

 

Something feels… _different_ , today. Danny would ignore it, but it is messing with his brain right now. Besides, if he isn't late, then what's the –

 

Danny breathes in.

 

A strangled yell escapes him, along with air from lungs _that shouldn't exist in this form_. They hadn't existed in this form since he'd gotten it – even during his first transformation, fresh out of the portal, Danny was pretty sure that he was hallucinating all of his bodily functions. No better way to start off being dead than to deny that you're actually dead, right?

 

And any other accidental transformation, Danny would only notice the lack of breathing when he 'held' his breath – even though there was no breath _to_ hold, his mind would still automatically fill in the blanks so as to avoid _absolute insanity._

 

Which is exactly why, now, in the throes of hysteria, his mind was trying to fill in the blanks, but essentially startled itself into reality when Danny actually _did_ what it was trying to imitate.

 

Danny strangles himself on the roof, choking and gasping with a spasming chest of lungs. Where was the air even going to? He has no heart to pump oxygenated blood through veins that don't run - he's just supposed to be a physical manifestation of ectoplasm!

 

Belatedly, Danny barely manages to notice that he's slowly sinking through floors, writhing in the air like some kind of violently drowning person. He shoves the cold from his body, reverting the transformation in his (thankfully) empty room.

 

He drops heavily onto the floor, white flash practically blinding his already shattered mind. The time, the school day, the 'sneak through the house' plan all fly out the window as the ghost-boy battles a panic attack.

 

Jazz finds Danny on the floor of his room sobbing, scratching at his chest futilely, with an unwound pseudo-binder on the floor next to him.

 

"Danny!" Jazz gasps, running to her hyperventilating brother, "What's wrong? Did you see another ghost?"

 

Danny wheezes, knocking his sister's limbs off of his body, "N-no… Nah… Ugh… This is _terrible…_ "

 

Jazz sort of rotates her hands in the air in a confused wax-on wax-off motion, obviously put-off by Danny's blasé reaction to his own mind pitching a tent in la-la land, "Um, okay. Are you… okay?"

 

Snort. "No."

 

"…Alright, then. Is there uh… anything I can do?"

 

Wheeze. "No."

 

Jazz makes hesitant movements to get up off the floor. "Oh… Okay th –"

 

 _Wait a minute, I didn't risk getting my body zapped into goo for nothing._ "Hold on… What time is it?"

 

A pause just long enough to look at the analog clock on the bedside table, "7 o'clock."

 

"Oh, _no._ I'm in time for school." Danny's head shoots up from its bowed position, eyes wide and then crunching closed in resignation, "Great. Just great."

 

Jazz looks puzzled, "What do you mean, 'In time for'? Where did you go?"

 

Danny sighs, "Nowhere, Jazz. Nowhere. What day is it again?"

 

Not even a second's pause. "Friday."

 

"…When did that happen?" Danny stares at his carpeted floor, one of the few spots in his room that wasn't covered in _stuff,_ "No, seriously. What day did I fight – er, I mean… What day was the _meaty-ghost attack_ on the school?"

 

Jazz glares at him, hard, with searching eyes before answering laconically, "Monday."

 

 _Huh_ , Danny quivers with after-shocks of his breakdown, _it's been a while since I've lost track of the days like that._

 

Danny opens his mouth to ask 'do I _have_ to go?' before he's sputtering with the feeling of ice sliding up and down his throat.

 

He covers up the sliver of condensation by coughing into his shoulder, face turned from his sister. Some puffs of air still seep out, but Jazz is thankfully too busy shaking her head in admonishment to notice.

 

"See, this is why you should clean your room. It's filthy in here!" She waves a hand around as if it would gather some physical form of mustiness, but nothing appears. Not yet sated in her righteous quest to be 'right', Jazz stands and walks towards the door.

 

"Go get a drink of water and get ready for school, Danny," she disappears down the hallway, only to pop her head into view once more, "And don't let me catch you guzzling unfiltered bathroom water again!"

 

Danny nods his head frantically, faking an additional cough when the icy 'ghost sense' (as Tucker called it) steams out from his throat once more with violent vengeance.

 

The young half-ghost waits with literal bated breath on the floor until he hears his sister's door close completely. Then he jumps up, stumbles a bit on a pile of discarded papers and notebooks, and quietly shuts his door all of the way.

 

"Bloo, please don't do that again. I almost got caught! You know by now that white clouds come out of my mouth if you're near." Danny whisper-shouts tiredly to the emptiness of his room, keen on reprimanding the obviously guilty ghost, "And I'm sorry that I didn't trust you on the roof, but not all of us can disappear at the drop of a hat and get away with it."

 

Danny stares from the corner of his room with hands on his hips, waiting to see the flash of white that signals the nurse ghost's arrival.

 

…No response.

 

"Bloo?" He calls questioningly.

 

…No Bloo.

 

 _Well if it isn't Bloo… Then why is my ghost sense going crazy right now?_ Danny wonders as another bout of cold air sprays from his throat and nose. It makes him feel like he's about to choke on water when it gets like this.

 

_Maybe… That means a powerful ghost is nearby!?_

 

With enhanced hearing, the ghost teen can faintly hear echoing laughter coming from somewhere in town. It is followed by screams of people, some of them even heard so clear that Danny can make out cries of ' _Ghost!_ ' in the mix.

 

Danny hurriedly shoves some pants on his legs, foregoing the long process of re-wrapping his ace binder ( _Why do I always unwrap it in the middle of a panic attack? That's so inconvenient, body, why don't you just choke like_ a man _or something._ ) by using his worn, fluffy camo jacket that practically eats him up.

 

He snatches his half-charged phone from its resting spot on the computer desk, shakily scrolling through his contacts until he comes across the saved group called 'Scream Team.'

 

Danny dials while shoving shoes on his feet, once again breaking the rules and leaving the socks off.

 

"Danny? What's wrong?"

 

"MmhrmhI'mupdon'tworry…"

 

 _Wow, you can really tell which one's Tucker and which one's Sam by how awake they are_ , Danny snickers mentally.

 

"Sam! Tucker, wake the hell up. There's a ghost causing havoc somewhere around town and I…" A choked breath. Dare he say it? He has to… endangering his friends or not, the town needed someone who wasn't liable to tripping over their own feet (dad) or destroying everything in sight (mom), "I don't think I can do it alone… I need your help."

 

A small bout of silence as his two friends take in Danny's truthful words.

 

"Alright. We'll be at your house in ten minutes."

 

"Ten min – I _cannot_ get there in ten minutes. Not all of us have high-tech scooters, Sam!"

 

"Tough. Run." Sam drops the line, leaving a fuming Tucker and an unsure Danny.

 

"…You don't have to, if you don't want to," Danny mumbles out, twiddling his thumbs and trying to ignore how cold his insides feel. His transformation was just itching to burst forward, if that even makes sense. His ghost side wasn't sentient, right? He didn't suck up some random ghost and stitch it into his body did he –

 

Tucker interrupts Danny's unexpected revelation and contained freak-out with a sigh and the sound of a creaking spring mattress. "Nah, I'll come. I just can't get there as fast as Sam can. Bring another Fenton Thermos; you never gave me a spare after Monday."

 

…Pause. "Did that really happen Monday? I feel like it was longer than that."

 

"Yes, Danny. You fought the Lunch Ghost on Monday. Today is Friday. This is all happening within the same week as well."

 

 _Bless you, Saint Tucker, for keeping me sane for a few more minutes._ "Got'cha. Thanks, bro. See you in hell!"

 

A chuckle, "I thought Lancer's class was 'hell.' Do we have to make tiers of which hell is what now?"

 

"Heh, I guess we do." The maincal laughter and sounds of destruction peak, causing Danny to instinctually swivel his head towards his window. "That freak is getting closer though. I need to go."

 

"Yup. Bye."

 

Danny chucks the kept Fenton Thermos into his purple bag and zips it up, tossing the whole thing over his shoulder as he, frankly, makes way too much noise bursting out of his room and thumping down the stairs.

 

He runs into the kitchen and towards the front door, noting that his parents are in the lab, as they usually are these days. They will hopefully be preoccupied for all or most of the ghost smack-down that's about to happen.

 

Danny makes his way hastily down the sidewalk in the direction of where Sam will be riding in from, barely acknowledging that he can hear Jazz's bedroom door open about thirty seconds too late to catch her little brother.

 

He slips into an alley about a quarter of the way there, his mental clock informing him that it had been approximately six to nine minutes since he left the house. Now all he had to do was wait for the sound of Sam's scooter to come around the corner… There!

 

Danny sticks part of his body out of the alley and into Sam's view, secretly delighted when his plan works and the purple Goth slows their scooter to a stop directly in front of their friend on the road.

 

"So?" They pop the white gum in their mouth. Danny can smell stale Chicklets, which is both weird as hell and fascinating. He wonders if he can frustrate Sam one week later on by correctly guessing each gum brand and flavor she chews…

 

"We can both squeeze together on one scooter and take the road, hoping we'll come across it eventually and not be blocked by other cars. _Or…_ " Danny grins, displaying his empty palms towards Sam in a gesture, " _Or,_ I can fly around and try to guide you there with my ghost sense. I'm pretty sure it's stronger when I'm ghost. Something about being able to tell where other ghosts are…"

 

Danny doesn't even have to hear Sam say "that's weird" verbally – he can see it on their face loud and clear.

 

But, they shrug anyway, pulling out their phone headset in order to ride and call Tucker at the same time, "Sure, ghost boy. You fly, I ride."

 

She also briefly unearths the Anti-Creep Stick, which she kept from the previous ghost fight. Tucker likes to jokingly call her 'The Muscle', and Sam gets angry at him, but the last time she hip-checked someone and they practically flew a few yards away, she was only proving her brute strength to her two 'Scream Team' members.

 

Sam will always retaliate by calling Tucker 'The Support', though. And no one says it to Danny's face, but he's pretty sure that they call him 'Ghost Boy' no matter what they're talking about. Some nicknames tend to stick with weird context.

 

Danny shakes his mind away from the roaming thoughts, squeezing his eyes shut in the middle of the alley he had backed into in order to transform. The cold burst that comes from 'going ghost' is like heaven; pressure from an overloaded fissure is let loose.

 

"Wow. Eager much?" Sam drones from their position still sitting on the scooter. Danny looks at them in question from his hover a yard off of the pavement. "You transformed in barely a second. That's got to be a new record or something."

 

Danny sweats nervously, feeling bad and unlucky prickles on his neck, which he quickly attributes it to Sam's staring. New record? Sam did like recording all of his 'vitals' whenever he'd give up and let her. Was she going to make him do timed tests, too?

 

"L-let's get going, okay?" Danny stutters anxiously, very willing to get the conversation away from 'testing Danny' territory and more into 'fighting ghosts.' Also, this alley was giving him the creeps suddenly…

 

Sam smirks at him from under her purple helmet, obviously amused at being a part of his plight.

 

Danny does a little loop-de-loop in the air because he can, and also to turn around faster, don't look at me like that Sam it was to turn around faster!

 

…and then they're off, Sam talking to Tucker on her mobile headset while Danny coasts around with his arms pinned to his torso, increasing his speed just slightly more than Sam's scooter rumbling away beneath him.

 

 _The nose knows_ , Danny quips as the horizontal position and rough airflow of flying cause all of his ghost sense condensation to spill out of his nostrils instead of his mouth. Several times he takes a few risky turns that make Sam curse; but what can he do? The ghost is on the move, and Danny can't hear the ruckus from earlier anymore.

 

He has to go invisible a few times as people jogging or walking dogs like complete _weirdos_ at 7 a.m pass by, but sometimes he doesn't see them in time. He does, however, get a nice earful of surprised shouts or whimpering pets. He can only smile and wave awkwardly at the scared citizens, hoping fitfully that no one connects Sam to his appearance and tries to question her later about 'relations with ghosts.'

 

Danny can already imagine the shit storm his parents would kick up. Sam Manson and Tucker Foley fraternizing with ghosts? No more being friends with Danny Fenton if you're _those_ kinds of people!

 

"We're coming up on the Lake Michigan docks. Nowhere near the residential district now. It's all old warehouses." Sam yells into the receiver, slowing her scooter a notch as she now has to dodge around many up-turned boxes and crates. "It looks like a Packer's game happened last night or something. There's shit everywhere…"

 

"Ghost shenanigans," Danny shouts distractedly, coming to a stop in front of a box blockade that Sam can't cross with her scooter.

 

"What?" Sam yells, turning the blue vehicle off and hanging up their helmet as they examine the warehouses in the near distance. "Yeah, it's in the mostly abandoned warehouse district on the southernmost Lake Michigan dock. No one even works over here anymore, they just have shipments being stored for weeks on end."

 

"How do you know that?" Danny asks when he drops to the ground, ghost tail unthinkingly changing into two physical legs as he does. Hanging his backpack sans Fenton Thermos onto Sam's scooter as well, Danny turns a questioning eye to his friend.

 

"My parents are on the boards of most of the Amity Park shipping companies. Why do you think they chose _this_ town over all the other rinky-dink towns on the border of The Great Lakes?" Sam shrugs like it's no big deal.

 

Danny's mouth falls open, incredulous. "Your family _owns_ the Amity Park shipping companies!?"

 

"Eh, no. Not really. They just…" Sam taps their chin. "Okay, yeah. Nevermind. They totally own the Amity Park shipping companies."

 

Danny is about to question his apparently _stinking rich_ friend even more, but Tucker fuzzes over the purple Goth's headset.

 

"Coming up _… hrrk_ … on the docks. Wait… _huff_ … for me."

 

"Sure thing, Tuk-Nut," Sam smirks at the new nickname, probably able to feel Tuk-Nut's frustration through the phone because _they're a witch_ , "Look for the giant box blockade. Can't miss it."

 

A grumble of noise before Tucker assumedly hangs up the phone.

 

Danny rolls his eyes at his friends' antics and takes to flight again, adjusting the Fenton Thermos strapped across his (flat? Flat. Whoa.) chest. He pretends to be peeking over the box blockade (nothing to see) when in reality he's frantically rubbing at his unbound chest with a wondering hand.

 

No breath. No lungs. No beating noise. No heart. No blood. No guts.

 

So what the hell happened earlier on the roof…? Did he just imagine having lungs that needed air? Was his mind playing tricks on him again?

 

As Danny ponders his existence as a human-ghost hybrid, Tucker lopes in from behind a train boxcar line, out of breath and desperately holding his drooping backpack with one hand to keep it from knocking around.

 

"…If my parents wouldn't try to eat you two alive as soon as I brought you home, I'd be training you in the gym twelve hours a day," Sam shakes her head in disappointment, waving a hand at the floating Danny, "And you, ghost boy, can you stop feeling yourself up and get down here? We need a plan, if the ghost is even _in_ that warehouse you keep staring at."

 

Danny startles, yanking his hand away from his chest with a bright green blush. It highlights some of the dark green freckles that dot his face, but his two friends are so distracted that they don't coo or pinch his cheeks like they do when he's 'red-faced' as a human.

 

So Danny lowers himself in the air and hands off the thermos to a panting Tucker, only receiving a tired thumbs up in response.

 

"I may be able to _sense_ the ghost, but that doesn't mean that I can _see_ the ghost," Danny waggles a finger at Sam, earning a hip-cock and an eyebrow-raise in return.

 

"So… We're gonna… Have to… Go in?" Tucker groans, breathing heavily bent over with his hands on his knees, "Oh my _god._ I need to get a scooter, too. Or die in a -"

 

Sam elbows an insensitive Tucker in the ribs, doubling him over in pain and wheezing.

 

Danny hums, ignorant to his friend's tactless complaint, flying back up to peer over the box blockade, "I think that if we sneak in, we can get a good look of whatever it is first. Sound good?" He turns down to his friends, palms splayed outward in a gesture.

 

"Uh, what happened?" He ends up questioning instead, seeing a blistered Sam standing over a collapsed Tucker.

 

"Oh, nothing much," Sam re-adjusts a few of their bobby pins, slicking back short hair into a particularly masculine look, "But, yeah. I can agree to that. Tuk?"

 

The genderfluid Goth kicks a downed techno-geek, who only grunts in pain and heaves himself to his feet, "Sure. Great. I'm on it."

 

Danny resists the urge to shout something like 'Super-duper!' He fears it will make him sound too much like his dad. And also out to his friends how much of an emotional funk he's in right now. Can't a guy ask for some lousy average feelings every now and again so that he doesn't have to fake them?

 

The ghost-boy teetering on the edge of dissociation hovers uncertainly around his two friends attempting to climb the box blockade, but making no headway as it is too unstable.

 

"Mmm… Well… Maybe I could help?" Danny shrugs, watching as Sam dodges another fallen box.

 

Tucker huffs out a pained breath as he lands on his butt, tripping on a low-level box. "Are you talking about trying to fly us over the box-pile or that thing you do where you walk through stuff?"

 

Danny scratches his head, fascinated by how his shock of white hair seems to be moving around with unseen static. "Both? Either? I don't know, I'd feel safer with trying to phase you through first. I don't know if I've got this whole flying thing down yet."

 

"I'm down," Sam agrees, holding one hand up towards the flying boy, "With either, really. Just don't drop me or leave me stuck inside a box."

 

"Uh, sure. Will do," Danny twists his mouth as he grab ahold of Sam's arm, focusing all of his energy into going translucent…

 

" _Ack!_ " Sam shouts as ninety-pounds of ghost-boy lands on top of her, "What the… was that supposed to happen?"

 

Danny shakes himself mentally, rolling off of his human cushion, "Whoops. Guess I should focus on one thing at a time for now…"

 

Squashing any hint of disgust and disappointment inside of himself ( _Can't multitask? I guess it's time to throw ourselves off of a bridge then._ ) Danny does his best to walk Sam through the box pile with his shared intangibility. It is a tingling concept, turning someone else intangible at the same time as himself, but he tries not to let it show.

 

"Okay, I'll go back through and get Tucker," Danny informs Sam, letting go of their hand but keeping his own intangibility in order to walk back through the box pile.

 

He comes across an excited looking Tucker, and stares at him in confusion.

 

"Dude, can you, like, _fly_ me over instead?" The jittery red-beret wearing teen asks, practically hopping on one foot with enthusiasm.

 

"Uh…" Danny scratches the back of his head, unwilling to drop his friend but also unwilling to tell him 'no.' "Sure. I can try."

 

So Danny hovers behind his friend, placing both of his arm under Tucker's and gripping tightly. As he throws as much of himself into the air, thinking that flying with two weights would be immensely harder than one, he realizes that he has made A Mistake.

 

Danny and Tucker shoot off into the sky at an immeasurable speed, both screaming in shock and fear as they nearly touch a cloud before Danny gets a hold of himself and screeches to a stop.

 

"Whoa!" The flying human shouts, looking down with wide eyes, "Danny, I… This is _amazing!"_

 

Danny only curses out loud, causing his friend to twist back and stare at him with a raised eyebrow. They begin their descent, a frustrated ghost-boy taking the reins while the previously animated human boy is quiet in contemplation.

 

"What the hell was that?" Sam exclaims as the two land, throwing her hands into the air, "Did you mean to do that… _Again?_ "

 

"No," Danny sighs, disheartened state evident in his set shoulders, "I don't know what _any_ of that was. There's no way I could pick anyone up in… my other form. So how in the world can I…"

 

Abruptly, Danny curses again and slaps himself in the face. His two friends look at him in alarm, but they can't do much when he's floating a few feet too many above their heads.

 

"Duh, of _course_ I can do that. I can shut one of those terrible school lockers with one hand. I've literally punched a ghost so hard it fell through a wall!" Danny snarls something that sounds like 'stupid', slowly twirling in the air so that his back is to Sam and Tucker. "Let's just… Get going. If I have 'super strength' then I guess I have super strength. It'll come in handy…"

 

Sam and Tucker share a look, hurrying after their rapidly floating friend. Thankfully, Danny still had enough of his mind to not immediately zoom off into oblivion and leave his friends in the dust, which is apparently something the ghost-boy is capable of now after _those_ flying speeds.

 

Danny shivers once more, whether from the proximity of the ghost they were chasing or from Sam boring a hole into the back of his head. Was she devising a new 'flight speed test' behind his back? God, it feels like the alley all over again…

 

The trio walk (or float) their way through a partially opened wooden warehouse door, peering inside with eyes full of trepidation. What would this new ghost be like? Would they struggle, then win, or are they in over their heads with this 'ghost hunting' business?

 

An echoing sigh catches Danny's attention. He flies up and over a tower of storage units, unaware of his friends being stuck on the ground. They wave their hands frantically, but don't make any noise in fear of giving away their position, thus being stuck without their main line of defense/offense: Danny. They pull out their borrowed Fenton Inventions, hoping for the best.

 

Danny charges up ecto-energy in his stretched out left palm, the other held down low next to his hip bone ready for a swift upper-cut when needed.

 

Still, he was incredibly unprepared for when the ghost flies right up into his face and shouts:

 

" _Beware!_ "

 

Danny yelps, releasing the ecto-sphere a few inches too far to the left, missing the blue specter. His upper-cut also misses, accidentally breaking a box that was flying around his head.

 

Wait – flying boxes?

 

"I am the Box Ghost!"

 

"Oh, that makes sense I guess," Danny shrugs instead of _keeping it to his idiot self,_ shaken even more when the ghost seemingly hears him and spins around to point a glowing pale finger in his face.

 

"Yes; it is _I._ The one and true controller of all things square, cubed, and rectangular!" The Box Ghost bellows a gut-heavy laugh, throwing its head back and holding up its hands in claw-formation.

 

Danny would laugh if he didn't know the true power of this spook yet, making any 'over the top' theatrics as unfunny as death itself.

 

Instead, he narrows his view onto the target, powering up another swirl of energy in his palm, not questioning it when the shot is near immediately ready to be fired.

 

"Then I guess I'll beat you with something spherical!" Danny shouts as he lets loose his ecto-sphere.

 

"Oh, no! Not something spherical, cylindrical, or star-shaped!" The ghost grabs the sides of its face, body arching backward as it screams in fear of the ecto-energy.

 

Pathetically, the Box Ghost doesn't even dodge, getting hit right in the gut and being thrown to the floor. All of the ineffectually flying boxes drop as well.

 

Danny stares down at his 'possibly powerful enemy' with a blank face.

 

The flummoxed ghost-boy lands on his feet as Tucker sucks the 'knocked out' Box Ghost into the Fenton Thermos. Sam says nothing as she shoves the metal bat and the soup tin into her messenger bag.

 

…No one moves.

 

"What the fuck was that!?" Danny suddenly yells, throwing his hands up, but then rapidly shaking them out as he accidentally summons green mist into the air. " _Arg!_ Why can't I ever control anything!? You know, I thought that it would be an _actually powerful_ ghost. Why else would my ghost sense be trying to choke me to death?"

 

A moment later Danny is sinking though the floor in uncontrolled intangibility. This only seems to steam the raving boy even more.

 

"Oh, wait…" the half-ghost spins around to glare at his two frightened friends, " _I'm already dead!_ "

 

Silence reins after the outburst. Danny angrily picks himself up out of the floor and wraps his arms around his two friends.

 

Unexpectedly, what Sam and Tucker thought was a hug of frustration turns into Danny picking them both up and flying out a broken window. Sam screams a little as one of her legs brush up against some ectoplasmic residue, but is otherwise quiet as their flying friend drops them gently next to the blue scooter.

 

"Danny – " Tucker tries, only to be cut off with the bright white flash of his friend transforming into a human once more.

 

"No, Tuk, just…" Another noise of defeat, this time accompanied by a shaking hand running through oily, tangled hair. "Let's just… get to school. Does anybody have the time?"

 

Sam grabs their bags from her scooter, pulling out a random cellphone.

 

"Shit," she slaps her forehead, "What the hell do you mean that took _two hours?"_

 

Tucker and Danny's eyebrows shoot up their foreheads.

 

"Oh, man," Tucker moans, "Maybe if we run, we'll be in time for third period…"

 

Danny shuffles his feet, seeming to struggle a little bit with carrying his backpack, "If I wasn't suddenly the most tired piece of shit to exist, I would carry you two there."

 

Sam sighs, sitting on her scooter. "I'll head home, put this back before my parents notice it's gone, then meet you guys there. Okay?" A pause of deliberation. "And, Danny? You're not a piece of shit. You did a great job."

 

Danny swallows bile, tears, emotions - whatever the hell just tried to crawl up his throat and make him _scream._

 

"No one else can do what you can do. Just…" Sam awkwardly shoves a helmet on their slightly red face. "Just remember that, okay? We've got your back no matter what."

 

With that, the purple Goth gives a two-finger salute, starts up their scooter, and is puttering away within just a few seconds.

 

The half-ghost shivers, unusually wishing that Sam didn't leave. He was feeling bad, unlucky, _sick_ pricklings on his neck again. He even took an instinctual glance around, finding nothing but boxes and boxes and – oh, look - _boxes._

 

"You okay, man?" Tucker asks his wary looking friend, "Would you rather go home?"

 

Danny shakes himself, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nah. Just… Something weird, I guess. We should go if we're gonna make it."

 

The two students set off at a power-walk, aware that their 'MIA' status wouldn't do them any favors in a school that has no idea of their ghostly activities.

 

…The green eyes of a predator narrow, tracking its prey with pinpoint accuracy. No movement eludes the hunter, no sound, no shift of heat in the air. Its mechanical body is deathly silent as the master of the hollow case watches the rare _halfa_ trot around with its human _pet._

 

"I _was_ following that ridiculously box-obsessed patsy," the hunter ghost sounds out with its electrical voice bank, "But this… Is _much_ more interesting. A _halfa?_ Out _here_ as its origin? How intriguing is it that the unnatural burst of ecto-energy on my radar was its transformation?"

 

The ghost cyborg leans forward on one knee from its position atop the highest building in this corner of Amity Park: The FentonWorks Inventions tower. They glance briefly down into the alley a few streets away, where they first spied the strong switch between two forms.

 

"They also seem to be a… _connoisseur_ of catching prey as I am." They scoff, thinking of the unimpressionable fight in the warehouse, "However, to capture _that_ bellowing oaf isn't much of a prize."

 

The hunter summons up a holographic camera of their current home-world cage, full to the brim with writhing ghosts of many kinds. A particularly feisty were-cat hisses and throws a paw at its _gracious host_ , spitting Esperanto curses and trying to summon its circular razors with abandon.

 

"And to think – the thanks for this tidbit of information on my newest prey goes to a half-destabilized kitty cat like _you._ What a disappointing catch you were, in such a state…"

 

The predator only chuckles at the aggressive display, banishing the visual representation back into their suit.

 

"Nevertheless, if they cannot defeat _me_ in battle, then I shall add their presence to my collection. It is the least I can do for such a… _rarity._ "

 

They laugh, flying into the air, relishing in the scream that they tear from a human passing by underneath them, "And who knows? Perhaps my… _employer_ will be pleased with my new addition. He may even give me a 'raise.'"

 

Another nasty laugh, the ghost rocketing off into the high skies to a place not yet known.

 

Practically running to school now, Danny sneezes, looks over his shoulder, then shivers.

 

What an unlucky feeling day for the schlemiel of the world…

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

The three friends, having met up briefly at their neighboring lockers, burst into their third period Sociology class with a gush of wind, panting.

 

Mrs. El-Hashem blinks rapidly, readjusting her mint green hijab and white shawl with prim hands, "Sit, sit! This is your first offense, but remember, any more than three tardies with me results in detention."

 

The trio nods rapidly, hustling to their front-row seats. Each pull out their notebooks (minus Danny, who just fumbles with loose leaf paper. All of the freshmen teachers are used to their smallest student's disorganized ways by now.) and begin to quickly copy down the information on the board.

 

Barely five minutes into the lesson, a finger taps on Danny's shoulder. He startles horribly, but it's just Tucker handing him the Fenton Thermos. Slightly confused, Danny leans around his black friend to look at his incredibly white friend, raising an eyebrow in question.

 

Sam only makes vague hand motions, then bends forward to write again. Danny and Tucker share a shrug, the pimply pale boy taking a cursory glance around the room to spot any possible adverse reactions to their thermos passing game just now.

 

The only person he notices acting funny is Starr, but that's nothing new. She and Kwan were going through another rough patch, but that's none of Danny's business. He shoves the overtly large thermos into his equally huge jacket pocket.

 

 _Just three friends passing around a glowing soup tin_ , Danny taps his fingers on the sticky mix between wood and plastic tabletop, _nothing weird to see here._

 

A balled up piece of paper hits Danny in the shoulder. He, again, startles horribly, taking a covert glance over his shoulder to see that it was the fidgeting Starr who was attempting to create contact.

 

He picks up the paper, unwrapping it as quietly as he can, but thankfully Mrs. El-Hashem is a lecturer, and her voice drowns out the other noises in the room.

 

A small drop of dread freezes over Danny's heart when he reads the small, nearly inconsequential note.

 

'where is your binder? ? ?'

 

Slowly, as if unbelieving, the transgender boy raises a bruised hand to his chest.

 

His _unbound chest._

 

 _Fuck_ , he mentally screams as he frantically zips up his giant fuzzy jacket. _Shit!_

 

How could he have forgotten that he was running around unbound today?

 

_It's because you don't wear a binder in your other form, remember? Sam and Tucker were too preoccupied trying not to get killed from the mess you got them into to notice!_

 

Danny whimpers quietly at his mind's harsh truth. How can he be such an idiot? Nothing was okay! Nothing would ever be okay again and oh god he can't breathe anymore what will happen to his friends what if they get hurt _I can't deal with this –_

 

"Mrs. El-Hashem? May I take Danny to the office? He's having a panic attack."

 

A dozen eyes swivel to the front of the room to land of a standing Kumari Gill rubbing the back of a quietly, yet obviously, hyperventilating Danny Fenton.

 

All Danny's mind can conjure up is a hearty _Fuck._

 

The teacher adjusts her wire-frame glasses to examine her two students, nodding after only a few seconds of consideration. "Yes, Ms. Gill, please do escort Mr. Fenton to the office."

 

Before the panicking boy can comprehend the situation, Danny finds himself being almost dragged out into the hallway, Sam and Tucker making aborted movements to follow from what he can see in his peripherals.

 

Instead of being 'escorted to the office', however, Danny's brain, with its consistency of cheap cherry slushee, recognizes the slightly altered route the brown-skinned girl is lugging him through.

 

But why in the world would Kumari take him to the unisex bathroom via the least used hallways was beyond Danny. He was just busy trying to _breathe._

 

"No, Starr, it's okay!" Kumari was reassuring someone on her phone, one arm still wound around the lagging Danny's body, "It's not your fault. He would've noticed eventually; better it be in a classroom than in the middle of a crowded hallway, right?"

 

Danny's breathing becomes less of a race and more of a rattle. He still allows the _friend safety nurturing help_ to drag him into the echoing unisex bathroom.

 

"No, tell everyone to stay away for now. He isn't like you or Kwan – he needs space. Yes, tell Kwan not to come, either. I'm calling Li down – don't tell me stuff I already know!"

 

Danny is leaned up onto a bench lining the back area where open shower heads are attached to the walls. He slumps, not having the energy to give his weary body any commands at the moment.

 

"Li Namguhng? Yes, I know you're in the middle of gym. No, I am not Danny. I need you to – no I did _not_ kill Danny and dump him in a ditch!"

 

Kumari is yelling into Danny's phone, which, um? When the hell did she get that? Danny shifts slightly on his uncomfortable bench seat, finding his pockets decidedly empty.

 

" _Namguhng!_ Danny and I are in the bathroom by the office. I need you to come here _right now_ and help Danny."

 

A small ice-cube is swallowed down the half-ghost's throat with clenching muscles. The phone conversation isn't registering in his head right now… Nothing is, probably, and _oh, what the hell else is new…_

 

"…Stop making noises and words that I can't understand and just get down here already!" With that, Kumari ends the phone conversation with one finger tap. Huffing, she plops herself down next to the listing Danny, propping him up with one thick shoulder.

 

"Danny…" she whispers, like saying anything louder would cause a bomb to go off. "Are you okay? Can you hear me right now?"

 

A small mumble, sounding suspiciously like 'ghost shenanigans.' Kumari ignores it with lots and lots of bypassing alarms in her head.

 

"I called Li down. Do you like Li?" A grunt. Kumari takes it as a positive sign. "Well, Li likes you. And they're going to do whatever it takes to help you, okay?"

 

And then comes the waiting game, Danny staring at some indistinct spot in the air while Kumari swings her feet, taking her shoes on and off with her toes and twisting a rubber toy in her fingers.

 

Finally, the door is opened by the man of the hour, Li Namguhng. He pokes his slightly perspiring head in, followed by the rest of his body in a red and white school gym uniform.

 

"Took you long enough," Kumari hisses, "He's been like this for the past _twenty minutes."_

 

"Hey - I may be the mistress of ill-timed distractions, but it takes a lot to get away from that _barbarian_ Tetslaff." Li deftly unwinds his hair from an intricate bun, letting sweaty locks fall free with a sigh of released heat.

 

The non-binary teen scoots himself close to his out-of-it friend, close but not yet touching. Still, he accepts the body's weight when Kumari leans it onto him.

 

"Danny," hums Li, biting his lips and peering down at the tired and beaten looking boy, "Danny."

 

Danny stutters to life like an old toy, dusty and worn with age, using what's left of its energy to work just one more time. Eyes blink once, twice, before closing completely in a flinch.

 

"Gooddaammmnniittt…" Danny moans out, his body slumping forward as he buries his face in his hands, "Noottt agaaainn…"

 

"Ah," Li sighs and rubs Danny's shoulders with a somewhat relieved smile, "There he is. Thanks, Kumari."

 

Said girl grunts, standing with her hands on her hips as she looks down at the embracing teens, "It's fine. Do you want me to leave?"

 

Li looks like he's about to nod his head, tricky facial expressions flickering, when Danny's hand shoots out and grabs the girl's in front of him.

 

"Kumari…" Danny groans, back shuddering, "Thanks for getting me out of there."

 

Kumari only blushes a ruddy red, one hand coming up for her mouth to chew on its nails. "N-no problem-o, D-Danny…"

 

Danny releases her hand with a thumbs up, arm dropping onto Li's lap adjacent to his. He's startled out of his semi-relaxed position cradled in Li's arms when his phone rings obnoxiously from Kumari's pocket.

 

"Oops!" Kumari fumbles with the caseless phone with slightly guilty hands, "Didn't mean to almost steal this." She hands it back to the waiting Danny, seemingly unwilling to leave just yet.

 

"Ugh," Danny groans once more when he sees just who it is that is calling, "It's my dad. Everybody plug your ears."

 

Li gets a wide-eyed look of understanding on his face while Kumari can only get out a 'what' before a loud, booming voice is coming over the speaker with a " _Danny-boy!_ "

 

"Hey, dad," Danny-boy sighs, "What's up?"

 

"Where are you now, son?"

 

Danny looks around himself curiously, as if just now realizing where he was taken, "The bathroom."

 

"At school?"

 

"At school." _Thank fuck._

 

"Alright, then I guess you couldn't've heard about the multiple ghost attacks this morning around the city, huh?"

 

"Nope," he answers automatically, troublemaking ways and lying habits coming back to bite him in the butt.

 

Pause. Back the truck up. "Wait, _multiple?_ When, where, what happened?"

 

"Whoa, slow down there, rocket-man." Danny growls in embarrassment; his father seeming unaffected by his show of aggression.

 

"There was that hat-octopus ghost in the park again, but it went into the fountain before your mother and I could capture it. And then there was that box-throwing ghost that appeared when you left for school… We found some ectoplasmic residue leading to the docks, but no ghost. There were two sightings of two separate ghosts, but neither attacked… Oh, Danny, almost forgot; your mother wants to know why she got a call saying that you didn't show up for school until the middle of third period?"

 

Breath caught in his throat, Danny waves his hand around in the air as if attempting to summon a reason for his temporary absence to quell his previously rambling father, "Uh…"

 

The cellphone is suddenly snatched from his hand by Li, who only winked at his gaping friend with a coinspirational expression.

 

"Hi, Mr. Fenton? It's me, Li Namguhng. Yes, _that_ Li; I'm so glad that your son talks about me _so much._ Danny accidentally took a wrong turn in an alley near my place this morning, so I walked him to school. It just took us a little bit is all, sir."

 

Danny and Kumari watch the primp and posed Li as he nods his head, hums, and says 'oh, I know, right?' at all the right times, apparently playing Jack Fenton like a fiddle.

 

Li was just informing Jack about the best – _oh it's to die for, sir, I promise_ \- recipe on sweet black sesame fudge when the sink closest to the door suddenly bursts to life at the highest setting despite the knob not being turned.

 

Everyone becomes stiff with fear as they all turn their heads towards the sink, watching as heavily pressurized water splutters into the half-clogged drain and sloshes onto the floor with great big _flop_ s.

 

Ice slides down Danny's throat unexpectedly. He stares at the rampaging sink with horrified clarity. _Oh no…_

 

"M-Mr. Fenton, sir, I may have to… continue this conversation some other day. Something odd is happening right now and I –" Li shrieks as a glowing green liquidly _something_ wiggles its way out of the sink, one tentacle-looking fabric fold at a time. It ropes its long 'limbs' around, clinging to the stall doors to pull itself out of the pipes faster.

 

A floating white hat is unearthed from the sink, appearing to be the last 'limb' of the slimy dark blue ecto-horror in front of them. It hovers silently, looming over the three students with fabric-like tentacles attached to every corner of the room like some kind of web.

 

A beat passes. Kumari whispers an oath, nearly fainting right there onto the wet bathroom floor, but suddenly picks herself back up with a drawn out shriek of terror, followed by a yelled _"Ghoooost!"_

 

The ghost undulates, ropes of ectoplasmic residue sliding off of its suspended limbs and hissing slightly as they come into contact with dry spots on the floor and walls. All other ectoplasm blends with the water, clogging drains on the floor and bathing the small room in a green film.

 

Li speaks frantically into the phone before abruptly hanging up, shoving the electronic device into his pocket, "Danny, Kumari – get away from it!"

 

A wet giggle sounds from somewhere in the bathroom, but no one is paying that noise much attention when the dancing specter in front of them is rocking its giant white hat back and forth and slithering its many limbs around on the stalls, some being ripped from their hinges and tossed to the blocked entrance with a _bang_.

 

Danny and Kumari step closer to their shivering sophomore friend, getting grabbed around their middles by the somewhat in-control Li. Ice prickles Danny's nose as another giggle sounds in the room, coming from somewhere other than the currently attacking spook.

 

_What in the world is going on? Who keeps giggling like that?_

 

"Oh, humans are so _fun_ when they're terrified," a gravelly voice intones. "Keep at it, Dappy!"

 

'Dappy' throws themselves to the wetness of the floor, splashing contaminated green water everywhere. Its limbs splay themselves onto new areas, some of the linoleum cracking and splintering under the pressure. A few of the spigots on the walls are knocked clean off, hitting the ceiling harshly.

 

The three students cower as the spook slithers closer, one of them darting eyes wildly around the room for something, just _something._

 

 _I can't transform when there are people around!_ Danny reminds himself even as he can feel the cold energy of his core shoving fruitlessly against his organs. Then again, he can also feel something cold and hard hitting his hand in increment swings…

 

How could he forget! Danny yanks out the Fenton Thermos with a flourish, causing the two people next to him to flinch and shout at the abrupt motion.

 

However, before he can point the thermos set to 'Catch' at the wet ghost, it reacts with recognition of the tech from its daring escape in the FentonWorks lab last week. It bellows loudly with a mouth unseen, flinging cloth lines out and about the enemy-weapon wielding teen.

 

Danny goes flying to the side with a shout, busting through a locked stall and crashing into the hard wall on top of a toilet. He groans as his vision fuzzes slightly from the hard hit to the back of his head, but is nonetheless up and ready to have another go within seconds.

 

He hears twin voices screaming, throwing himself out of the stall just as two bodies are tossed his way in a high-speed collision.

 

The three teens roll out into the hallway, the entrance door having been broken by a wayward stall door a while ago, each of them getting to their feet at varying times.

 

Danny points and shoots the Fenton Thermos just as Li or Kumari or _whoever_ throws the Fire Alarm down, causing red alarms to sound at an increasing volume.

 

The outline of a figure disappears from the bathroom at the cacophony of noise, sighing in disappointment as their 'Dappy' is caught and whisked away. So much for having fun…

 

The ghost called 'Dappy' bellows once more as it's sucked, anti-climactically, into the thermos. Danny hastily replaces the cap (just in case) and shoves the whole thing into his pocket just as several classes begin to file down the hallway.

 

" _Gulliver's Travels_ , people! What happened here!?" The school's _loudest_ teacher questions _loudly_. Mr. Lancer points accusing fingers one by one at the three wet, scared, and somewhat beat-up teens, "Who destroyed the school bathroom!?"

 

"I-it was a-a g-g-g-ghost…" Kumari shivers, trembling limbs and chattering teeth disrupting her spoken words as she hugs herself around her middle, "A big… big g-g-ghost… Came t-t-through t-the sink…"

 

Right on time, another spigot busts in the bathroom, spraying glowing green water out into the hallway. Most students are out of range, but a few scream and try to dodge the ectoplasmic water now raining down.

 

Mr. Lancer's eyes go wide, the fire alarms still sounding. He hastily jogs over to the open office door, startling the already packing-up secretary, "Tell the Principal there's been another ghost attack. Make an announcement to gather in the gym… and somebody call those darn _Fentons!_ "

 

The students loitering in the hallway with their bewildered teachers and classes are herded towards the gym by a few more-informed staff with megaphones. There is a slow migration towards the aforementioned meeting place by chattering students.

 

Danny would break away from his unexpected 'ghost encountering' trio, but Li has him crushed into a side-hug and Kumari is holding his hand in a vice grip that he wouldn't dare shake off.

 

"Did you see it?"

 

"See what? No one did. Maybe somebody dumped toxic waste into the pipes again…"

 

"No way, those three kids wouldn't lie. Did you see them?"

 

"Two freshmen and a sophomore? I doubt it… They'd do anything for attention."

 

"How about the ghost boy?"

 

" _Eee!_ I wonder if he'll ever show up again…"

 

"Maybe it was only a one-time thing…"

 

"Do you think he'd talk to us if we stopped him?"

 

"Stopped him when – in the middle of a fight?"

 

"The ghost boy fights _other_ ghosts?"

 

"Yea, didn't you hear? It's been going around town for a little while, but my brother said he saw the ghost boy just this morning flying down the street! He even waved!"

 

"Wow, really? What if it was a different ghost?"

 

"Nope; green eyes, white hair, black suit; it was _definitely_ the same ghost."

 

Danny sweats nervously at the rumors his piqued hearing picks up from the crowd. Did people really observe him that often? How much of an impact had his 'ghost fights' been making on the town?

 

Then, an even more horrifying thought: Does this mean Danny's parents know about the 'ghost boy?'

 

Li has to catch Danny as he faints on the spot. Kumari doesn't seem to notice as she continues to hold Danny's hand even as he is carried to the gym.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Today, there were three ghost attacks on Amity Park," Danny informs his phone friend as he floats down the lab steps, phasing through the entrance door with nary a thought.

 

"Were you harmed?" Vladimir 'call me Vlad' inquires, voice rumbling but also as lilting as ever. It makes Danny's skin crawl.

 

Still… "Yup. It was… pretty bad. I think I'm getting used to being thrown around by ghosts, though. This is, what, the third time?"

 

That was a lie. Danny was _not_ used to getting thrown around by ghosts, but his mind was dissociating up a storm right now, so who was he to say that every time he felt the ice crawl in his throat he secretly freaked the fuck out?

 

"That is a horrible thing for you to experience, Daniel. Your parents should be protecting you with what they have created," the 'old man' tells 'Daniel.' Danny would've appreciated the statement a few weeks ago when he wasn't currently shoving the Fenton Thermos into the Fenton Flusher with two ghosts successfully captured inside.

 

But now? Now… He just wants to make a hand puppet and mock the man every time he says something like that.

 

However, Danny wasn't raised in a barn (he was raised in a lab, _thankyouverymuch_ ) so he doesn't act on his rude thoughts, no matter how much he wants to.

 

"Of course, Vlad. But my situation now probably won't change just because I complain about it, so…" Danny sighs, using little strength to pull down the lever, swirling blue light into the Ghost Portal as two ghostly voices yell out parting expletives.

 

Danny waves at them cockily as they are 'flushed' into the other dimension.

 

"What was that noise?" Vlad demands, a dangerous tone in his voice.

 

Startled, Danny answers the command because he has parents who do the same thing, only sounding more like parents and less like a grizzly bear, "Oh, I'm in my parents' lab. Some things just… make noises in here."

 

He chuckles awkwardly in the silence on the other end of the phone, rubbing the back of his head with a hesitant hand. What did he say wrong?

 

"What does… this _lab_ look like?" Asks the other man in a somewhat wistful voice.

 

Danny sniffs at his mind's envisioning of an elderly man living alone in the forest with nothing but a service dog for company. "It's very… chrome. There's two levels, one where most of the unfinished projects go and one that, as of right now, houses the Ghost Portal."

 

Something in Danny's body prickles in unease at the information he's giving away, but he shoves it back with an uncaring hand. He wanted Vlad to tell him more about, well, _stuff_ in general. If he wanted to be a creep and ask a kid about his home life, Danny wouldn't stop him. Probably.

 

"…What does your mother, Maddie, cook for your meals every night?"

 

 _Lonely old coot._ Still, Danny decides to indulge his desolate friend. "It doesn't happen often. But when it does, well… let's just say that I can eat straight up ectoplasm now and be totally fine."

 

And so Vlad goes on, asking about the small, mundane details of Danny's days existing as a teen in North Eastern America. Danny just lounges around, sometimes floating in his human form, in the second level of the lab. He'd closed the Ghost Portal right after he flushed the ghosts in, so he felt at least somewhat safe and private while down here.

 

A sigh, maybe from either content or it's just Vlad doing weird _Vlad things_ again, "How was school?"

 

Danny resists the auto-pilot response of 'fine' that he so often gives to his sister whenever she prods. "It was… Well, the ghost _thing_ happened in the bathroom, but I was in the bathroom because I had a panic attack during class, and I had a panic attack during class because I realized I forgot my binder, and I forgot my binder because in the morning there was another ghost attack that made me forget…"

 

There is a sudden crashing noise from the speaker on the phone, causing Danny to yelp in surprise. What in the world…?

 

Vlad sounds like he's growling in anger (or is that his service dog?) as a mechanical voice rumbles from somewhere far away from Vlad's position. Luckily, Danny has 'super hearing', so he can at least somewhat catch every word.

 

"Sir, I have obtained information on the _half_ – "

 

Vlad snarls out a ' _silence, you fool!_ ' that sounds like he's taken the phone away from his face before the line falls dead.

 

…Danny stares down at the sleek black phone with raised eyebrows.

 

 _So, that's how that feels._ Danny spends a few moments remembering all the times he would abruptly hang up on Vlad right after some loud event happened as well, leaving the 'concerned' man in the dark for sometimes days on end.

 

Danny shrugs, not understanding if he cares whether or not his phone friend is being murdered right this second somewhere in lonely Wisconsin because his mind has decided to dissociate and wipe him of all emotions right now.

 

So he hops his way back up the steps, phasing through doors as he goes without a care in the world (except he does care, he just can't feel it right now.) He almost runs right into his parents and Jazz congregating at the kitchen table, but he only waves a hand at them and walks up the steps to his room, missing the flummoxed expressions on their faces.

 

"I thought you said he had a panic attack, went missing for three hours, had another panic attack at school, was attacked by a ghost, and had to be carried to your car by that Li kid?" Jack asks his daughter with a confused expression, fingers held up as he counts off the 'crazy shit that happened to Danny today.'

 

"I… I did! He _did!_ " Jazz defends, hands tugging on her already mussed hair, "Oh, man… This doesn't add up!"

 

Upstairs, Danny flops onto his bed, shoving a few piles of clothes onto the floor while he's at it. A whisper of cold erupts from his nose as a soft white hand rubs soothingly on shoulder.

 

Danny sighs, "Sorry 'bout this morning, Bloo."

 

Bloo only breathes wind softly onto their unofficially appointed charge, laying themselves down onto the small bed next to the slumbering teen.

 

Somewhere inside of a purple backpack, a phone vibrates with unanswered texts.

 


	18. unfurl, phantom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Harassment, physical assault, violence, horror, suicidal thoughts/actions, mentions of self-harm, transphobia, cissexism

 

"I swear to my slimy, cold, ghosty little butt if Box Ghost gets out one more time, I'm going to _eviscerate_ him."

 

Danny tosses the now empty Fenton Thermos onto the metal table next to him, sighing explosively as he lazily floats across the lab room. Sam and Tucker find themselves sitting on two stools near the wall, panting with fatigue from the hefty ghost run they had just completed.

 

It was barely a few hours after school, but thanks to Danny's 'chilly' sensitivity to ghosts, they had all simultaneously run out of their seventh period classes (Danny and Sam from Pre-Algebra, Tucker from History) and fought off the extremely annoying and persistent Box Ghost.

 

No one had been seriously harmed, but plenty of students made stupid moves like running straight at the ghost as a dare, trying to get a picture of the fight and getting knocked out by flying boxes, or by fainting right in the middle of the fray.

 

To add even more work to their already busy schedule, they had to round up a few 'ecto-pusses' that had been causing havoc at the largest fountain in Amity Park. Families there had repeated the same idiotic stunts that the students at the school did; running at the enemy, fainting near the enemy, or just making a general nuisance of themselves as everybody panicked at the ghost attack.

 

"Why are people so stupid?" Sam questions cattily, tossing a hand up and scowling, "It's like they don't care if they get hurt by an _actual goddamn ghost."_

 

Tucker only clicks his finger guns at his steamed Goth friend in agreement, guzzling a bottle of water. "Can you even permanently get rid of ghosts? Or are they just going to keep showing up forever in the same form with the same powers and the same goals…"

 

Danny groans, throwing an arm over his glowing green eyes as he floats in the middle of the room next to a closed Ghost Portal, "Oh, man, don't even say that! I don't want to _think_ about what will happen in a few years. Or even a few months. Or days. Or hours."

 

Sam snickers, "Okay, _Ghost Boy._ But I'm telling you right now – that little hero complex you've got going on is gonna last and _last_ until you tire yourself out."

 

The ghost-boy grimaces, crossing his arms over his chest as he lands on the metal floor. Sam was right, and Danny knew it. Why else was he running around at every whiff of trouble his ghost sense gave him and fighting the horrors that came out of the ill-contained portal?

 

The reason was his mind wouldn't leave him alone. Cautions and alarms blaring were drowned out by heroic delusions of 'I can save people', 'These people need me', 'No one else can do what I do', 'I have to use these powers for _good.'_

 

"Somebody has to help," Danny mutters heavily, swiping a tongue over the slow-growing baby fangs inside his mouth. "And don't call me Ghost-Boy. It's creepy."

 

"How is it any creepier than the creeps we deal with every day?" Sam asks with a raised eyebrow. Tucker looks interested to hear his half-ghost-friend's answer, too.

 

Sighing, Danny crushes his eyes closed and transforms, feeling the cold leave his body as all of his biological systems seem to instantly restart as if they never stopped. Thankfully, his lungs hadn't magically appeared inside of his ghost body for a week or so, but there were still a few close calls when his brain would stutter and convince him to breathe, cancelling his transformation with a panic attack.

 

 _Which -_ hello? _Panic attack? As a ghost? Doesn't make any sense, you cruddy body!_

 

"It's 'cause all of the people in town and at school call me that. And I hear them, the way they talk about me," Danny shivers, wrapping clammy palms around his arms for some form of comfort, "It's really _creepy,_ because they don't know that it's me. That I'm right there, and I can hear everything they're saying."

 

His two friends share an understanding look. They sometimes heard the 'rumors' as well, and none of them in the temporarily dubbed 'Scream Team' were particularly happy about it.

 

"I think the weirdest one is where Starr and Paulina will spend the entire lunch hour swapping photos taken of you mid-fight, as if you weren't risking your life to save them," Tucker muses, scrunching his face up in slight disgust, "At first, I think everyone was too freaked out about a 'cute ghost boy' in the school, but, now…"

 

"Barely a month after you appear and suddenly having the hots for a dead dude is all the rage," Sam wiggles her fingers, snickering at Danny's red-freckled face.

 

"Cut it out, you guys…" Danny mumbles, wiping a hand over his nose as if it would get rid of his embarrassment, "Isn't it kind of hard to keep calling me 'Danny' when I'm like this? But you can't in the middle of a battle, unless someone gets smart and puts the pieces together. We need to think of a better name than 'Ghost Boy.' I mean, there's got to be tons of other teenage ghosts running – er, flying around, right?"

 

Sam rolls their eyes at their friend's obvious evasion tactic, but concedes. There were too many close-calls when Sam and Tucker would have to choke down shouted 'Dannys!' when their ghost-friend pulled a particularly violent stunt and got himself thrown around.

 

A slim, slick smile breaches Sam's face, causing Tucker to lean away from her in worry, "Uh… I don't like that look very much."

 

"So, does this mean you have an idea? Or do you just have a stomach ache?" Danny teases, joining his two friends by leaning against the table they were sitting at.

 

The fat Goth only shimmies in their seat, getting comfortable, "Oh, I do. I just need to test a little something first."

 

When all she receives is two skeptical looks in return, she waves her hands around with a devious expression, "Don't worry about it, okay? I'll handle it. I just need some time to get it ready."

 

Tucker shrugs first, going back to sipping at his water, but Danny narrows his eyes and leans forward to search his friend's face.

 

 _Sam wanting to 'test' something is never a good thing_ , Danny pulls at the skin on his elbow with a contemplative expression. _What is she up to…?_

 

He's interrupted by the sound of someone entering the house – his parents. Danny swivels his head upward, confusing his two friends into looking up as well, as they don't have the accompanying super-hearing to aid them.

 

"Parents. Home." Is all Danny grunts out before gripping Sam and Tucker's arms, focusing hard on phasing the three of them through the wall to the first level. The logs on the second level door wouldn't show as being opened by Danny, as the half-ghost had _stupidly_ taken to carrying his friends around and phasing them through things for ease of movement. Also, it's kind of cool.

 

 _Idiot_ , Danny tells himself harshly, _they'd have understood you being in the lab if you'd left a DNA trail and the portal wasn't closed beforehand!_

 

Instead, there were three teens, three closed doors, and no password or DNA logs to show for their arrival. The unexplained never _stayed_ unexplained in this house, especially when it comes to the lab, meaning his meticulous parents would be immediately suspicious.

 

Danny pulls off an incredible feat by being both intangible, holding two intangible people, and floating up through the floors, all without truly activating his ghost powers. His downfall, however, comes when he reaches his closed room (where the home-sitting Jazz expected the three teens to be in the first place) and Bloo is lounging on his bed.

 

Problem: His friends didn't know about Bloo.

 

Which is exactly why Danny is wrestling them both into submission (frightfully easy) while they shout delayed battle cries, picking up Fenton Inventions to arm themselves with.

 

"What the hell, Danny?" Sam grunts, trying to shove the supernaturally strong boy off of her back, "There's a frickin' ghost in your room, can't you see it? What are you doing!?"

 

Tucker got the short end of the stick in the abrupt puppy pile, only being able to mumble loudly in complaint as his face is further smushed into the floor by both Sam and Danny sitting on top of him.

 

"It's okay! It's just Bloo!" Danny exclaims, trying to calm his friends down by sitting on them. What can he say? He's not the best planner when under duress. "They're a good ghost!"

 

Bloo 'lool's unhelpfully, apparently so unconcerned for their safety that they never even got up off the bed to escape or defend themselves.

 

Unfortunately, Danny being stronger than an average human doesn't mean he's any heavier, so Sam and Tucker eventually manage to throw him off of the top of their dog pile. Thankfully, all the two ghost-fighting friends do is switch glances between the ghost on the ground underneath them and the ghost on the bed.

 

The ghost on the bed waves a limp hand languishly at the two humans.

 

"You are being _so_ unhelpful right now," Danny hisses, flashing his tiny fangs as if it would intimidate the nurse. Instead, an echoing laugh sounds through the room. "Oh, well, I'm _so_ glad that I can be of some entertainment for you, jerk. Not like I just saved your twirly white tail. _Again."_ Danny crosses his arms and huffs, turning his head from the amused specter as well as he could under the weight of two people.

 

"So, this is 'Blue'?" Tucker asks, jabbing a thumb at the lazy white ghost on Danny's bed with disbelieving eyes.

 

Danny shakes his head seriously, gesturing with his arms, "No, no. You gotta say it like this: _Bloo._ "

 

" _Blooo?_ " Sam chuckles, looking like she's either about to start laughing and never stop or toss something out the window right then and there, "Like, as in 'boo' but with an L?"

 

Bloo 'lool's from their spot on the bed, which is kind of helpful considering the current conversation. But Danny will never admit that to the ghost, lest they become smug and unmanageable.

 

There came a knocking on Danny's closed door, startling the squabbling trio into silence.

 

"Danny? What in the world is going on in there?" Jazz yelled from behind the door.

 

"Uh… Erm… Nothing, Jazz!" Danny calls back, shoving his two friends off and away, causing another small earthquake to rock the house.

 

"I'm coming in!"

 

"Of course you are…" Danny mumbles tiredly, propping his head up on one hand while he lays on the floor, waiting saucily for his 'doom.'

 

Jazz shoulders her way into the door as if she expected it to be locked, and also expected a weak move like _that_ would magically open a locked door.

 

Danny, Sam, and Tucker should know. They've busted through about two locked doors within the past week and a half, whether because Danny's ghost powers weren't reliable or Sam and Tucker were on their own and couldn't phase through objects by themselves, meaning they had to get a little bit destructive.

 

 _Good of the town, good of the people, yada yada… Eh, I'm sure whoever has to fix the damage will forgive us_ , Danny decides with a mental shrug. He's pretty sure new carpenter and fixer-upper stores had been popping up lately…

 

"Oh, uh…" Jazz looks slightly confused when her plan to come in the reclusive teen's room was met with no resistance. "What are you guys up to?"

 

Danny assumes, from his blind position pressed to the floor by several limbs, that from the lack of screaming and ecto-gun firing, Bloo had made like an egg and beat it before he could be caught by anyone else in the house. "Not much, just having some good old wrestling time. I did it with Li once. In a pond of muck. It was pretty fun."

 

Danny wanted to smack himself. Curse his running mouth for giving out vital information better kept hidden to be used as an excuse. He really needed to write an 'excuse list for getting out of things quick' down so that situations like this don't happen.

 

Jazz blinks rapidly, flabbergasted by her little brother's completely nonchalant response… and admittance to 'fraternizing with the enemy', "You rolled in a muddy pond with _that_ guy? Why!?"

 

Danny frowns, shoving a few more limbs off of him in order to stand, "Because he's my friend and we rolled down a hill and couldn't stop, that's why." Sam and Tucker climb to their feet as well, but stay silent and in the background. Like good friends do when siblings throw down unexpectedly.

 

His sister opens and closes her mouth several times. "Where was I? When was this? Why were you rolling down a hill? Were you two _alone?"_

 

Cringing at the rapid fire questions, Danny attempts to answer, "Well –"

 

" _What are you physical and romantic relations with Li Namguhng!?"_ Jazz shouts, causing Danny to flinch back with wide eyes at the proverbial finger of accusation being pointed in his face.

 

"That's… what you're asking?" Danny draws his eyebrows together, feeling some kind of curling emotion bubbling in his gut, "Why does everyone keep asking me that? I mean, it's never those words exactly, but still…"

 

"Because you being around that kind of person is a legitimate concern of mine. Even Sam and Tucker agree with me. Don't you?" Jazz spins her calculating gaze onto the two cardboard cut-outs sitting on the bed. They only shrug nervously at Danny, who had also turned around to address his friends.

 

"Yea, well…" Danny rubs the back of his head, twisting his mouth to match his furrowed forehead. _Man, this is really digging into my 'self-loathing' time._ "You're just mad because he's a boy in a dress and that makes you uncomfortable. Who was it that gave out my number to random people, thus technically being the reason that I met Li through Kwan in the first place?"

 

Uh oh, Jazz looks like she's about to lay a major smack down on Danny with her folded arms and straight-back posture. Instead, what comes out of her mouth is entirely unusual for the situation. "I ordered you two new binders. Try not to ruin them this time around."

 

The older sister strides down the hallway to the stairs, presumably going to greet the parents who had just come home within the past five minutes.

 

As soon as Danny turns around to stare-down his friends, Sam puts her hands in the air, "Don't look at me; you know what _I_ am. And don't look at Tucker, either. If anyone who reads his Pinterest page met him in real life, they'd think he was a catfish."

 

Tucker looks offended, which would be funnier if whatever the hell just happened, hadn't. "So I like cute clothes. Whatever! It's not like my parents would let me run around in what Li does all the time."

 

Danny is just about to suggest that he calls up Li right now _, immediately_ , for a pep talk with Tucker, but he only gets as far as fishing around his bedsheets for his phone when his parents yell his name from downstairs.

 

"Eh… What are the chances that I'm in trouble?" Danny scratches his head, squinting at the clock on the bedside table. He couldn't have done _that_ much damage to the world by 4 p.m, right?

 

"Probably larger than you think," Sam makes a knowing face, dragging Tucker to his feet as the trio walk out of Danny's room and down the stairs, "We're going to head home. There's only so much we can do when we stand around awkwardly in the background listening to you get yelled at by several different people."

 

Danny waves his hand at his parting friends, understanding. He wouldn't want to be in someone else's house when they got yelled at, either.

 

Surprisingly, no one is in the kitchen or the living room, which is usually the prime 'yelling at Danny for being a mentally ill mess' position. Instead, the entrance lab door is wide open. The Ghost Portal is hopefully still closed, but if the second level door is also still closed, then that means that no one has even gone to check on the portal.

 

…Which is odd.

 

So Danny trumps down the lab steps, not even glancing at the hazmat suit he was supposed to don himself in. Once you die in an outfit, you're kind of _over_ that outfit forever. Plus, with all the time he's been spending down here in various traumatic situations, he feels like he can handle a bit of 'contamination.'

 

"Hey there, Danny-boy. Come look at what your mother and I fished out of one of the park ponds today!" Jack exclaims, readily giving his tiny son a hearty smack on the back. He seems to be doing that more often, as Danny no longer flies off of his feet at any amount of physical weight. Jack thinks his son is 'finally becoming a man', but oh boy, if he ever knew the real reason…

 

 _Let's just say those 'friendly smacks' wouldn't be so friendly anymore, or so gentle._ Danny bites the inside of his mouth, not even startled when his baby fangs prick the skin and draw a bit of blood/ectoplasm combo.

 

There's something new floating around in the ecto-chamber today. They only have one ecto-chamber, probably because his parents never thought they'd capture more than one ghost at a time, so there are three ghosts squeezed into the glowing green tube that once held Zippy-Doo-Da.

 

Danny briefly wonders whatever happened to the half-destabilized, bike riding, razor wheel throwing were-cat. He taps on the green glass thoughtfully, watching as the three ecto-pusses swirl around and make scary faces at the humans who come near.

 

"Hehe, _now_ it's a fish." Danny smiles, remembering how he reacted the first time. Thinking it was a fish inside instead of Zippy-Doo-Da was the _least_ of his worries that day.

 

Jazz comes up next to him with a pad and pencil, also foregoing her hazmat suit. Even his parents only have on their standard, day-to-day blue and orange jumpsuits.

 

 _Funny how when the lab becomes actually dangerous, no one wants to wear the safety gear anymore,_ Danny quips.

 

"So, why do they have faces like that? Aren't they the leftover consciousness of normal octopi? Or are they a mix between a human and an octopi? And why are there so many identical ghost octopi, except they all have different colored hats?" Jazz questions, scratching her pencil over her pad like a sleuthing detective on the job. Her brow is furrowed in concentration.

 

Danny takes a large step away in order to preserve his health.

 

"Oh, what wonderful, intelligent questions, Jasmine!" Mom coos, obviously excited at her daughter's interest in her work, "That's exactly why we've caught them. We're going to study them, and find out why they exist as they do."

 

Danny feels a bit of dread at that. Does that mean they were going to torture them? He knows he's heard his parents say, multiple times, that studying a ghost wouldn't hurt them, because ghosts can't feel. They only have one emotion, and it is tied to whatever obsession they obtained at death.

 

The half-ghost barely even breaches a mental breakdown at the thought ' _do_ I _have an obsession?'_ and _'but all of the ghosts I come across seem to feel pain;_ I _feel pain'_ when his father ruffles his hair, bringing him out of his swirling thoughts.

 

"How'd you like to help us, spaceman? I'd be a real educational adventure; I can guarantee it!"

 

"Now, Jack…" Maddie begins, frowning, "Danny isn't ready to jump right in like that. You know how he is around ghosts – he wouldn't be able to handle it so soon."

 

"Oh, well… I suppose…" Jack rubs the back of his head, obviously disappointed at not being able to spend some 'father-son time' with Danny.

 

Maddie notices her husband's downturned mouth, already patting him on the shoulder with a caring hand. "I'll be making fudge for tonight's desert. Would you like to help me make it, Jack?"

 

Jack immediately brightens, "Would I!?" He already begins to make his way back upstairs with a shouted, "Don't go poking the ghosts, kids! They'll probably eat you alive!"

 

With a relieved shake of her head and a smile, Maddie steps towards the exit as well, "Come on you two. We can examine the ecto-samples later on together."

 

Jazz snaps herself out of her flow and dutifully follows her parents, chewing on the end of her pencil with contemplation. Her notepad is full of neat, tiny notes with small diagrams hastily scribbled in the margins.

 

No one spots Danny hiding in the corner, purposefully making himself as small and insignificant as possible so as to evade the notice of his family.

 

Unfortunately, this won't be a perfect escape mission, because his parents left the entrance to the lab open for easy access. Still, if he stays quiet and doesn't get seen, he should be able to free the ecto-pusses, trick them into following him through the second level door so that he wouldn't have to make a bunch of noise opening it, and then toss them into the Ghost Portal before his parents can say 'Let's make fudge.'

 

Transforming quickly ( _close your eyes don't panic don't panic_ ), Danny ghosts his way over to the pad screen that controls the functions of the ecto-chamber, hoping that no one had wizened up and changed the password since his last escapade.

 

"Password accepted."

 

Oh, thank _fudge._

 

Now comes the hard part… Releasing the completely non-human ghosts into the Ghost Portal without having to open the second level door, thus sounding the buzzer throughout the lab.

 

The ecto-pusses bumble around uselessly, looking as if they would attack Danny one second, then twirling thoughtlessly the next. They look like drunk fish, and it is honestly incredibly hilarious to the half-ghost herding them towards the second level door.

 

"Come on, silly 'pusses, time to go home…" Danny sing-songs, batting at a couple of colorful hats on top of the ecto-pusses' "heads." Two only had hats and no head formed, but the one with the green hat has most of a globous cranium under its headgear.

 

The confused fish-ghosts phase through the door quite easily. Danny leaves them to their bobbing about in the middle of the room, walking over to the Ghost Portal door in order to open it once more.

 

"Man, I can't believe I just got done closing you, like, an hour ago," Danny grumbles, sweeping his arms around the ghosts in order to tease them into going straight to the portal, "Come on, you slimy ecto-marine life of… uh… fabric. I don't have all day."

 

After a few unsuccessful minutes of ecto-puss wrangling, Danny resorts to a bit of violence. Grabbing each ecto-puss by their thin tentacles, he spins in a circle like a fairground ride, waiting for the perfect shot to let loose his cargo.

 

"Back into your giant, other-wordly fish bowls you go!" Danny grunts, heaving the three ghosts into the portal. They fly, wailing, through the spiraling green, disappearing with a _whoosh_ ing sound and small ripple of light.

 

Danny doesn't hear the enraged shout from the other side of the door, too occupied by closing the portal. He does, however, notice when the buzzer sounds and the second level door slides open to reveal a very pissed off Maddie Fenton.

 

"Ah-hah!" She crows, pointing a wrist ray at the frozen Danny, "So it's _you_ who keeps releasing my ecto-samples. The Ghost Boy that haunts the high-school, threatening students every other day!"

 

Danny draws himself back, incredibly offended. _Threatens_ students? That's preposterous!

 

"Um, excuse _you_ , but I do _not_ threaten students. I _save_ students from the malicious ghosts that attack!" Danny throws his arms into the air, floating upward with body-arching indignation. "Not that you'd know that, seeing as you always arrive late to the scene!"

 

Maddie gasps, placing a hand to her chest, "Well, I never. _Jack! Jazz!_ Get down here!" She growls, powering up her weapon with a whine, "We've got a ghost to deal with!"

 

"Oh, no," Danny wheezes, already dodging the ecto-rays that his mother sends his way, "This is kind of bad."

 

It's even worse when there are three people shooting three kinds of guns.

 

Danny shouts as he dodges a sudden onslaught of rays, blasts, and lasers clogging up the lab. It takes him a while to find an opening to phase through the floor, but unfortunately his parents are better than he thought, because as soon as he gets out of the house he can see them running after him on the ground, his father already bringing the RV around for them to all pile into.

 

"Ah, geez," Danny yelps, flying as fast as he dares without losing control. Man, being afraid to use his full flying power is really starting to annoy him!

 

It's only when Danny gets a stinging blast to the back of his arm that he books it, haphazardly weaving between buildings. His hair flows backwards, his arms straight at his sides, and his legs became a trail as soon as he let go of his limiters.

 

He feels like he's flying a rocket ship.

 

"Woo-hoo!" Danny crows, uncaring if his family was in the Fenton RV following his every move, "This is the best thing _ever!_ "

 

He crashes head-first into something solid that screams slurs in surprise.

 

" _Oof."_

 

" _Ow, fuck!"_

 

The two humanoid ghosts roll into the mucky pond Danny had been flying over, causing a great wave of algae-covered liquid to coat the surrounding area. They swirl around in the muddy water for a bit, eventually remembering 'oh, yea, I'm a freaking ghost' and flying out.

 

"What the…" Danny appears to have just high speed head-butted a mermaid.

 

"Do you mind?" They sniff, wet voice sounding ruined by a throat infection or something, "I was waiting for my friend until you came along and got me all wet. Thanks for nothing, you ass." They fling their arms out and forward, as if trying to shoo the ghost-boy away.

 

"Uh… I'm sorry?" Danny shrugs, noticing how the other ghost didn't bother to go translucent in order to get all of the muck clinging to their body off.

 

"You should be." They huff, crossing their arms and staring into the mucky pond. "Now, go away! I have very important _business_ to conduct. And it's none of _your_ _business."_

 

Before Danny can reply with something stupid like 'it's a free country and I can be dead wherever I want', a glowing green hat pops out of the pond with nary a ripple.

 

"Oh." Is all Danny can say as he looks at the drunk-acting ecto-puss. "Hello, again."

 

"Gertrude! Hi there!" The mermaid clasps their dark green hands together with a toothy smile, "I have _got_ to tell you about what happened to Dappy. Do you remember Dappy? Of course you do, they were the one who stole your hat for two centuries. Oops, did I say that out loud? Well, now you know."

 

Danny is so very, very confused. He is snapped out of his confusion when he hears the sound of the bulky Fenton RV approaching from somewhere outside of the quaint little park that held the most perfect star-gazing hill.

 

The half-ghost flails a bit, "Listen, you two. Mermaid? And uh… Gertrude?" A bubbly grunt comes from the ecto-puss. "You've gotta leave."

 

The mermaid puts their hands on their cloth-covered hips, spectral tail shaped like a fish's whipping around with agitation, "Why? You're just the kid ghost that ran into me like a _dick._ "

 

Danny cringes slightly at their foul language, but knows that he's no better when in a mood. "Because my par- _Uaaoh…_ The Fentons are going to come and capture you again!" He directs the plea towards the ecto-puss in the pond apparently named 'Gertrude.'

 

It bubbles a worried (?) gurgle, pointing its head at the floating mermaid as if in question. Danny can't tell; he doesn't speak ecto-puss.

 

The mermaid growls, sounding like they have a broken water fountain in their throat, and whips their bushy kelp-like hair out of their face, "Fine! We'll have this conversation some other time. But if you don't show, just know that I'll tell your siblings what you were _really_ doing last Winter Solstice Truce!"

 

The green ecto-puss lowers itself back into the pond, leaving only the bewildered ghost-boy and the ticked off mermaid, waiting for the loud vehicle to find them as they awkwardly loiter in the park.

 

The half-fish ghost appears to be deliberating something as they fiddle with the flowery necklace draped down their chest, looking him up and down with critical red eyes. Finally, they stick out a dripping wet hand to be shaken. "I'm Marina."

 

Hesitating, Danny reaches out his own white gloved hand, "I'm uh… Uh…" What the heck was his name supposed to be again? Oh, right; Sam never freaking told him. Introducing yourself as 'Ghost-Boy' to an actual ghost is frightfully embarrassing.

 

Marina snorts, taking the hand away before Danny could grasp it, "Whatever; I'll find out someday. I always do."

 

With that, the mermaid slowly fades from sight with an echoing 'toodles!'

 

Danny stands (floats), flabbergasted, next to the partially depleted pond. He only moves once he realizes just how close the Fenton RV is (his parents must have locked onto his ecto-signature specifically) by rocketing into the air.

 

He flies as high as he dares, which is pretty up there if he says so himself, then pushes his way through clouds in order to find his way home.

 

 _This is the only time I will ever be thankful of that ridiculous Ops Center_ , Danny complains as he easily spots the technological dump of a building.

 

Danny transforms in his room, thankful that his entire family is out running around the town trying to capture a ghost that technically doesn't even exist as of right now, and flops down onto his bed with a tired sigh.

 

He dozes with the knowledge that ecto-pusses apparently understand English.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

" _I am the Box Ghost!"_

 

"Somebody fucking murder me," Danny grumbles as his head collapses into his pillowed arms on the desk, "Oh, wait… Too late."

 

Kids scatter as the news that a ghost is in the school reaches their notice via many cardboard boxes floating into the room. Several people get pelted, but fortunately the boxes are only half-full of paper or completely empty.

 

Danny bets his ungraded math test is currently being trampled in the hallway.

 

 _People must be getting used to the frequent ghost attacks,_ Danny observes as he finds himself in a quickly emptying room, _no one has fainted yet._

 

"I'm goin' ghost," Danny sighs out tiredly, not even tickled by the funny phrase he sometimes says when he transforms. It started out as a joke, really, when Sam suggested he have some kind of catch phrase that his 'fans' could identify him with. Now it was just the bane of the ghost-boy's existence.

 

He felt somewhat obligated to attempt to cheer himself up before every ghost-butt kicking. It was the least he could do for his failing enemies – not be a complete serpent during every battle.

 

 _Why did Tucker have to go to the bathroom_ right _as a ghost was attacking_ , Danny complains in his head as he flies out of the room, _now I have no idea where he is! Not that the Box Ghost is anything to be afraid of, anyway._

 

Danny studiously ignores the cries of both fear and jubilation as the students cowering in different corners to avoid the boxes dancing down the hallway catch sight of him. He only waves at the select few who are brave enough to stand and shout "Ghost Boy!"

 

Soon, however, he gets too close to the ghost to see any students anywhere, which is honestly a relief, because just last week kids were still stupid enough to try and approach an attacking ghost. It took several visits to the nurse's office and some angry teachers setting up rules to make that stop.

 

"The life of a celebrity getting to be too much for you?" Tucker quips as he slides smoothly out of an abandoned classroom, Fenton Thermos in hand.

 

"Nice timing for squeezing the lemon, Tuk," Danny makes a face at the running boy underneath him.

 

Tucker scowls, "Hey, I had to go! How could I have known that the Box Ghost would be just around the corner, waiting to throw boxes at me?"

 

Danny startles, raising his eyebrows at his friend, _"You're_ the first one he attacked?" This might be a bad thing… What if the Box Ghost was smart enough to go after Danny's friends in order to try and beat him?

 

But the techno-geek just scoffs, ability to partially read Danny's mind once again surfacing. "Aw, not like that. I just happened to be one of the first students that yelled 'ghost.' I don't think that square-loving buffoon knows how to plan ahead so well."

 

The flying half-ghost breathes out in some relief, picking up his speed once more. "This ought'a be quick, so toss me the Fenton Thermos as soon as you can."

 

Tucker gets out a 'gotcha' just as he collides with a sprinting Sam. They go down in a mess of limbs, and Danny has to slow to a stop in order to control his gut-heaving laughter. He scoops up the dropped soup tin rolling pitifully around the floor, strapping it across his chest like a satchel.

 

"Shut your mouth, Danny. Box Ghost is down the hall near the gym, trapping all of the evacuated students inside," Sam grunts out as she struggles briefly with the flailing Tucker, "Don't wait up. We'll get there eventually. Ow, Tuk – that was my nose!"

 

Danny gives a mocking salute at the hidden command of 'fly as fast as you want without having to worry about us keeping up.' Stifling his laughter in favor of doing a really cool loop-de-loop in the air in order to pick up speed and turn around faster, he flies towards the gym, dodging a few listlessly floating boxes dotting the hall.

 

"Oh no!" The light blue custodian shouts dramatically as Danny flies into view, "Not the sphere-throwing young _halfa_ of Amity Park!"

 

"One of these days, you're going to stick around and tell me what you and all the other ghosts know about me and Amity Park," Danny decides audibly, not even having to wait and charge up a blast. Nowadays, he only has to focus his energy and thrust his arm out, tossing the plasma-weapon at high speeds.

 

Box Ghost, surprisingly, dodges the first blast, screaming as he runs (flies) away. Danny easily catches up, throwing himself bodily into the ghost's large stomach and forcing them both to crash through a door.

 

The screams of about eight hundred people reach Danny's ears.

 

"Oh, great," Danny groans. He had just taken the ghost fight into the packed gym that Sam had specifically told him about not two minutes before.

 

Hearing the wailing of fear, the Box Ghost swoops across the crowd with bellowing laughter, "I am the Box Ghost! Fear me! Beware of my powers to control all things cubed, rectangular, or of the square containment unit!"

 

Danny flatly points the Fenton Thermos at the slow ghost, sucking him into the device within only a few seconds.

 

Everyone stops and stares at the awkwardly hovering ghost-boy, analyzing him for every move he makes.

 

 _It feels like I'm on stage for a really bad open mic night!_ Danny fidgets nervously, strapping the thermos onto his back once more. People's eyes follow his movements, some staring curiously at the obvious use of FentonWorks Inventions.

 

The previously weighted-shut gym doors burst open in that moment, admitting a winded Sam and Tucker. Sam draws in a huge breathe and shouts out:

 

"Phantom!"

 

 _What?_ Danny whirls around instinctively to look down at the new arrivals. _Fenton? No,_ Phantom…

 

"His name is Phantom?"

 

"Is that a name or just a word?"

 

"He reacted, though - so it must be his name."

 

"Hey, Phantom, down here!"

 

Danny turns once more automatically to the sound of an unknown student's voice. The person he looks upon seems slightly surprised before they wave hesitantly.

 

Danny waves back. That was probably a mistake.

 

"Whoa, Phantom!"

 

"Hey, Phantom, how are you doin'!"

 

"Phantom, look over here!"

 

"Can I get a photo for tomorrow's paper, Phantom!?"

 

The newly dubbed 'Phantom' backs away from the surging crowd, twitchy smile present on his face as he holds his hands up like a shield. He spots one of the teacher's speaking frantically into a phone, most likely calling his parents to come 'capture the ghost,' despite the fact that Danny had just _stupidly shown the whole school_ that he captured ghosts himself after he wins a fight.

 

Retreating from the noise, even getting a few 'no, come back!'s and 'bye!'s, Danny phases through the ceiling of the gym.

 

 _Sam was probably going to 'test' her new name for me in the middle of a battle so that I'd have a natural response!_ Danny realizes in his head, some anger and betrayal breeding in his gut. _She could've gotten someone hurt if I was distracted for too long._

 

Still… Danny had to admit, 'Phantom' sounded very close to 'Fenton', which was a name that he automatically responded to due to the school teachers' use of 'Mr. Fenton'. It was, grudgingly, a pretty well thought-out idea.

 

_I don't see why she couldn't have just told me in the first place, though. Now everyone in school knows my 'name!'_

 

The fuming 'Phantom' touches down somewhere behind the school, next to a line of dumpsters. He stands in between two of the smelly metal beasts as he transforms, hiding his sight from the white light just in case.

 

_Now, to sneak back in and pretend I was there the whole time…_

 

However, several other students apparently had the same idea.

 

"Are you sure this will work?" Paulina's voice sounds somewhere just a few yards away from Danny's current hiding spot. "I'm holding you responsible if we get caught, Dash."

 

"Cool it, Paulina. It'll work. Me n' Wes have done this tons of times," Dash Baxter brags to the skeptical Paulina Sanchez.

 

Danny has a micro heart attack. It causes his leg to jerk, kicking the side of the dumpster he is squeezed next to. A hollow _bang_ rattles his jaw.

 

"Wh – Fenton?" Dash looks down at the crouching teen, taking in his contrite body language, "What the heck are you doing hanging out by the trash?"

 

"Uh… Ghost attack?" Danny shrugs, offering up a very flimsy answer. Thankfully, the couple buys it, Paulina grasping at the tall freshman's arm.

 

"Oooh, was the Ghost Boy there?" Paulina asks excitedly, bright eyes wide with excitement, "Did he say anything to anyone?"

 

The actual ghost-boy shifts awkwardly, chuckling with hot, prickling feelings in his throat. "I… don't know. I hid out here. I didn't see anything."

 

Paulina clicks her teeth in disappointment, already dragging her blonde friend towards the school door, "Come on, boy! We have some mingling to do thanks to _you_ wanting to go out to eat!"

 

Dash tries to defend himself with a ' _you_ wanted me to take you out to eat!' followed by a sound that could only be Paulina laying down the law on his pasty white butt.

 

Danny rolls his eyes at the scene and stands, ready to follow them (and perhaps even drag on their coattails; 'sneaking out beforehand' sounded like a _great_ excuse right now) when he almost collides with _another_ unwanted figure.

 

"Fuck."

 

"Wow; do you kiss your mother with that mouth, Fenton?"

 

Wes Weston cocks an eyebrow, smug expression standing over the short Danny. Because he's taller and that's not fair.

 

Danny just breathes out his anxiety (it doesn't work; he feels the need to chew on a piece of steel gum and shatter all of his teeth until they fall out haltingly in bloody shards) and steps around the _annoying freshman football player._ The _annoying freshman football player_ moves with him, in the _goddamn way._

 

"Get out of the _goddamn way,"_ Danny sibilates, wishing nastily that he could pull his lips back and flash his sharp fangs like an animal. He resists, however, because he isn't an animal.

 

Danny is an amalgamation of hate, bile, and ectoplasm. And he isn't going to take anyone's shit right now. Especially not from straight guys like Wes Weston, who continually make it harder for people like Danny to exist without harassment and assault.

 

"I just want to talk, Fenton," Wes sighs, as if Danny was the one being completely unreasonable and a pain in the ass. It has the effect of kicking up the notch of rage boiling in Danny's mixed blood.

 

"Yea, well, I don't." Danny shoves his way past the taller boy, momentarily rocking Wes' body with a push of unexpected strength. His skin burns where it touched the offending person.

 

Wes only follows the shorter freshman as they walk towards the door, passing an open dumpster that reeks of forgotten trash, "Come on, Danny. Don't you even want to give me a chance? My friends tell me I'm a nice guy." Danny can practically feel the oily, 'boyish' smile that Wes tries to point his way. It makes spiders crawl up and down his spinal cord in a frenzy.

 

"No." _I swear to god if this piece of trash tries to talk to me after today… He doesn't respect me, he doesn't respect Sam or Li or Kumari. It's bigots like him that make this world so hard to live in…_

 

The bursting line keeping Danny from laying this kid's body flat out on the concrete in a spray of red gore snaps when Wes forcefully holds him back with an arm.

 

"Do," Danny grabs that arm, twisting it harshly to the side, "not," the weight of the body he hoists over his shoulder feels like nothing, _"touch me!"_

 

Danny executes Shoulder Throw #2, courtesy of his black-belt mother, and tosses Wes' nasty ass in the trash bin. Where it fucking belongs.

 

The sound of bone hitting metal, a short strangled yell of shock, and the heavy lid clamping down with a reverberating _bang_ is one of the most satisfying Danny has ever heard. Not even the threat of being punished, perhaps legally, keeps him from having his moment of pure gratification.

 

It doesn't even end when he meets the shocked eyes of Dash Baxter, the weighted door behind the blond still closing slowly with released air pressure.

 

"I…" Dash looks steamrolled, like he cannot believe that _just happened_. "You know, when I said 'call me if he bothers you', I was expecting to be the one to beat him up. Not you."

 

Danny only shrugs, relaxing his deceptively tense body as he slinks sorely back to the school building. As a parting word, he tells Dash "Keep him quiet for me, would you? I don't feel like explaining to my parents why I got arrested for giving someone a concussion with a dumpster."

 

Dash holds his hand out for a high-five. Danny has to jump to reach it. "Sure thing, Fenturd. Sure thing."

 

The half-ghost walks casually back into the school, leaving Dash behind to clean up the mess he made. There is a small skip to his step, making him fervent to find his friends (especially his transgender and non-binary ones) to spend some time dodging questions about his mental health.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny rolls around in bed, picking a little bit at the band-aid he had secured to the side of his mouth. Sometimes those ecto-pusses could get a good hit in with their wildly flung limbs.

 

Bloo pats his head appreciatively as he lays in their surprisingly solid lap. The white ghost has always had an abnormally short spectral trail, and has never formed any solid legs when visible, which led Danny to believe that maybe the ghost didn't have any legs at all.

 

…but he would probably never bring it up, maybe because he's never spoken to a ghost about the way they died or lived their 'previous' life, but also because he would have to play charades to get any straight answers out of the mute spirit.

 

A soft wispy hand stops Danny's fingers from digging at his scabby scarred arms. The ghost-boy swallows a bit of bile at the action, rubbing his face into the bright whiteness of the lap he laid on.

 

"Thanks, Bloo," he mumbles, earning a whimsical sigh in response. His injuries still itch distractingly, festering like beacons of sinful, violent, destructive expressions of emotion. And that's only adding to the wounds he receives from battling spooks all week.

 

Speaking of – the part of his arm that Wes grabbed tingles uncomfortably. Despite Danny happily 'contributing to the community' via the public service of downing a known adversary, it had lingering effects that no one else talked about. Now, in the dead of the night, Danny has no output for the bubbling brew in his gut that chanted _wrong wrong wrong I feel wrong._

 

"I feel gross," Danny sniffs. The nurse ghost only cards another slim hand through his hair. It makes him shiver with spasming back muscles.

 

Just as he's about to ditch the watchful ghost and find something probably of bad taste to do, Danny's phone pings from its position charging on the wall.

 

Bloo helpfully reaches over before Danny can toss himself limply to the floor (the first time he did, Bloo made a really loud and alarming noise. Only when Danny poked his head over the bed did the spirit stop. It was an uneasy day from then on.) and retrieves the phone, handing it over to the outstretched hand of the boy.

 

Danny mumbles another thanks, dragging a tired hand down his face as the light of the screen blinds him. Even set of the lowest brightness, it's still way too much for pitch darkness.

 

Unsurprisingly, it's the ever-chatty group from school. This time, however, it is only consisting of Danny himself, Salty, and Sweet. Meaning Dash and Kwan.

 

Jumping at the opportunity, Danny quickly saves and renames the three-man group chat to 'TrailMix,' then prays for his very soul that neither Dash nor Kwan ever find out, lest he be pummeled for his terrible, terrible joke.

 

_Sent at 10:44 p.m_

_KWAN: Hey, Danny. Can we ask you something?_

_DAN: yea sure go ahead_

_KWAN: What did Wes do to you at school?_

_DASH: didn't mean to tattle, dude._

 

Danny curses audibly, causing Bloo to startle and flick him on the nose for bad language. He barely notices the reprimand.

 

_DAN: well not much really_

_DAN: i just know who he is and what he does to people like me_

_DAN: and i wasnt taking any of his shit_

…

_DASH: yea I thought so_

_KWAN: Okay, but_

_KWAN: What did he do to you?_

_KWAN: Did he hurt you?_

…

…

…

_KWAN: Danny?_

_KWAN: I'll call Li, don't test me._

…

_DAN: he grabbed me, but that's it_

_DAN: it was only for like a second_

_DASH: Yea then you tossed him right into the trash_

_DASH: how in the world did you manage that, you're like 5feet and 90lbs_

_KWAN: Dash quit being good cop_

_DASH: shut up bad cop_

…

_DAN: my mom taught me sometime? ?_

_DAN: shes a black belt in something or other_

_DAN: and ill have you know that i am officially 5'2 98lbs thnks vry much_

_DASH: yea sure, sopping wet with shoes on maybe_

_DAN: Shut Up_

_DASH: whoa there mr black belt, wouldn't want you to toss me over your shoulder or nothing_

_KWAN: omg stop_

_KWAN: Dash I thought you were supposed to be good cop, stop being bad cop_

_DASH: shut up good cop_

 

Danny tosses his head back into Bloo's stomach and laughs a little, incredulous at the dynamics the two football players had. What a hoot.

 

_KWAN: We'll keep our mouths shut, Danny_

_KWAN: Don't worry about rumors or anything_

_DASH: yea sorry I told Kwan, I just got really excited_

_DASH: it WAS pretty cool to watch_

_DASH: btw I only went back because Paulina finally let go and I remembered that I left Wes behind_

_DAN: thnks i guess_

…

_KWAN: I'm still telling Li though_

_DAN: Aww Kwan Come On hes gonna yell at me_

_KWAN: lol danny he wouldn't yell at you_

_KWAN: He might kidnap you again though_

_DAN: He Told You About That!?_

_DASH: omg wut_

_DAN: nothing dash, dont worry about it_

 

Danny sighs for what felt like the hundredth time that day alone, dropping his still charging phone carelessly to the floor. He sits up temporarily to unwind his ace binder, small sparks of hope in his chest when he remembers that Jazz said she'd ordered him new actual binders.

 

 _I'm gonna have to apologize to her, aren't I?_ Danny winces. All he did was tell her the truth, but she was still acting like it was _his_ fault. _She just can't take a dose of her own medication, can she._

 

The tired half-ghost settles into bed, relishing in the sleepiness that is brought from a day of physical exertment, whether on ghosts or on gross straight dudes that hit on trans people as a joke.

 

Being one of the least lucky people to ever half-live, however, means that he is awoken several hours later at 3 a.m by ice coating his insides.

 

Danny mentally vows that if it is the Box Ghost, _again_ , he would most likely blast the good-for-nothing ghost into smithereens. He literally _just_ put that guy back when he got home from school.

 

Distantly; "I am the Box Ghost!"

 

After beating, trapping, and viciously shaking the ghost around like a martini in the Fenton Thermos, Danny takes some time to let out frustration by flying as close to the stars as he courageously can then dropping to the ground suddenly. It was even more exhilarating when he phased through the ground, being encased in darkness for several heart-stopping (ha!) moments before breaching the surface once more.

 

Because, y'know, he can. What's the fun in being half-dead when you don't mime killing yourself the rest of the way every now and again?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marina is a ghost OC made by audi AKA punkhalfghosts. Be sure to check out their awesome Danny Phantom fanart when you can.
> 
> I don't hate Wes; he just has some growing to do. If Danny assaults him in the meantime, all I can say it 'git gud.' It's a power trip for anybody that's faced discrimination in their lives to be able to finally _fight back._


	19. missing binder, if found, please Punch Him In The Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Graphic violence, gore, mouth trauma, body horror, intrusive thoughts, dissociation, ableist language, suicidal ideation, breakdowns

 

Existing as a half-ghost has set Danny apart from all of the other ghosts he's met so far. And it isn't just because half of the time (or, honestly – most of the time) he's a living, breathing fleshbag, but it's also because he has no clue how to act around the few _somewhat friendly_ ghosts he comes across.

 

Especially when he figures out that not automatically spawning into existence in the 'Ghost Zone' at your 'home' was really freaking weird.

 

"So… Why did you drag me out of bed at 5 a.m? To go talk to somebody?" Danny yawns, flying lazily beside the soupy green mermaid. For his complaining efforts, he gets a bushy ponytail made of kelp and seafoam to the face.

 

"Hey, I didn't do anything to whatever 'bed' you're talking about – I was told by a _certain_ confidant of mine that standing in a _certain_ spot at a _certain_ time of day was the most likely chance I'd get to meet you," Marina makes shrugging jazz-hands, twisting her face around like an annoyed pretzel, "I don't know _why_ you weren't at 'home' or whatever, but that's none of _my_ business why you like to hang out here so much."

 

Danny fidgets awkwardly, unsure how to respond. Thankfully, he doesn't have to, because Marina seems to be on a diatribe.

 

"And another thing!" She points one finger skyward, which makes her skinny, mottled arm perpendicular to her body, "Don't ever talk to me in public. There are some weird ass rumors going around about you – I can't be seen with a social leper; do you know how many favors I'd lose?"

 

The half-ghost slows down slightly in confusion, "But… I'm talking to you right now? And we're in public?"

 

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. One second, Marina is flying straight ahead, the next, she's whipped around with a hand stopping Danny's chest.

 

"Are you stupid, Phantom? I meant in the zone; you know!" Marina twirls her hands around like she's making cotton candy. Danny tries not to stare at her animated limbs so much, but it is futile. Her nails have cute little snail shells on them.

 

"I… oh… Right. Haha, yup," Danny pumps an arm across his torso like he just forgot to properly saddle his horse for a ride and is a disappointed cowboy, "Just… making a friendly ghost joke. Hehe…"

 

The mermaid looks perplexed, but in a slight and controlled way. Because she's really cool like that and Danny sort of admires her. But, once again, he can't ever tell her that lest she become smug and unmanageable.

 

 _Not that she isn't_ already _smug and unmanageable,_ Danny huffs mentally.

 

Marina critically looks the ghost-boy up and down, searching for any clues from his awkward body language. Danny resists the urge to cover himself up with his limbs – this hazmat suit had never really left anything to the imagination.

 

Finally, the mermaid begins to fly forward again with a dismissive wave of her hand. Danny sighs out in relief and follows, now more willing to do whatever the saucy spook had in mind if it meant getting her mind off and away from _that_ chain of events.

 

After a few more minutes of contemplative silence, Marina startles the tense Phantom by grabbing onto his arm and pulling him behind a few bushes (as if they weren't ghosts that could go invisible), "Look, there she is!"

 

Danny's eyes follow the line that Marina's excited hand maps out, easily spotting a sky blue and yellow ghost in a long European Period (what Period? Hell if Danny knows; he goes to public school) dress floating slowly down the park path. They look very beautiful, with their heavy braided hair, willowy limbs, and long, flat facial features.

 

Marina shakes Danny, vibrating slightly as she bites down on her dark green lips and squeals quietly. She looks intensely delighted to have found the ghost they were apparently looking for, so the shaken boy doesn't try to stop her from manhandling him.

 

"Isn't Dora just so _pretty?_ Her brother's an asshole, though, so in the Zone I can never talk to her," the mermaid lets out a mix between a dreamy sigh and a vexed growl.

 

Danny swallows, still unsure of the situation. With Bloo, he didn't have to pretend to be a 'normal ghost', but, now that he has a (tentative) friendship with a 'real' ghost who has the chance of becoming an enemy, all of his actions and thoughts are being constantly analyzed.

 

 _Why can't all ghosts be like Bloo or the ecto-pusses,_ Danny grumbles silently, _then I wouldn't have to worry about talking._ But Danny knows deep in his heart that the prospect of being a part of a whole new world was one of the most invigorating feelings he's ever felt. Something inside of him is whispering with hopes and dreams all tying into the single thought of _'I can't wait.'_

 

So Danny shoves his anxiety down as far as it'll go, turning to the wriggling mermaid next to him, "Well, we're not in the zone right now, so why don't you go talk to her? She looks like she's alone."

 

In fact, 'Dora' looked not only alone, but _lonely_ as well. Her eyes were downcast as she very sluggishly floated down the dirt path, head bowed and hands clasped in front of her like a silent prayer.

 

Marina only let's out a shriek, causing Danny to have a knee-jerk reaction and slap a hand over her mouth. Seconds later, he yanks it back, horrified by how he had instinctually grabbed the other spirit, but thankfully Marina only bunkers down more behind the bush and begins to chew on her flower necklace.

 

The more distance between the mermaid's mouth and his ectoplasmic body, the better. She had several rows of razor sharp teeth, like a shark's, and Danny wasn't stupid enough to assume the ghost couldn't beat him six ways from Sunday. Her grip was fierce and her red eyes shone like lasers in the dark.

 

"I can't, man!" Marina tosses her arms into the air. Danny resists the urge to yank them back down. "She's just so… so… _Augh!"_

 

"Shh!" Danny shushes her, peeking over the bush afterwards. Dora had stopped in the middle of the path and was gazing at the nearly full moon with… moony eyes.

 

"Huh," Phantom sniffs, eyebrows drawn together, "I really think you should talk to her. Like, right now. As soon as possible." _Before she starts waxing poetry to a space rock._

 

Marina makes an excited bleating noise, but it is quickly stifled by more fidgeting and flower-biting, "No… You do it first. I can't watch, though… but I will, I _know_ I will, because _holy crap – "_

 

Danny just sighs, standing with a 'fine.' It was obvious from the past ten minutes of stalling, staring, and general stalking that the mermaid had developed a sudden timid streak and wouldn't do it herself. The ghost-boy ignores the sounds coming from the nervous specter behind the bushes as he makes his way towards the hovering Dora.

 

He has a brief thought as to whether or not a ghost that walks everywhere seemed weird, but he waves it off despite worrying about his 'cover-up' of being a full-ghost. Flying drains his energy and makes him transform back at inconvenient times if he isn't careful.

 

"Um, hello…" Danny starts with, clasping one arm on his waist and the other behind his head, "I'm… Phantom." He starts to feel like he's in one of those terrible heteronormative teen summer flicks where the boy is characterized as a ball of hormones around any marginally attractive girl. It makes him kind of sick to his stomach, but also pumps up his embarrassment. He hopes his freckles aren't looking like light-bright green dots right now.

 

Dora blinks her eyes as if waking up, turning towards the short ghost-boy and looking down at him with gentle but morose eyes, "Hello, Ser Phantom. I am Princess Dorathea. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

 

Danny blinks, surprised at the incredibly formal language and distant attitude. _This_ was the ghost that Marina was heavy-duty crushing on? She looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment. "Oh, I uh… No real reason. You just seemed… lonely out here. So I thought I could keep you company?"

 

He tries for a smile, but her face doesn't change. Her dark brown eyes bore into him with a harshness he has never been able to place, but has seen in the eyes of quite a few human people. It makes him sad and uneasy – feeling like he needs to help but can't for some unreachable, unfathomable reason.

 

"I thank you, Ser Phantom, but I am in no need of company at this time," Dora intones loftily, bowing slightly at the waist, "Please do not go out of your way to tend to my wants or needs, however."

 

Reeling slightly at the convoluted statement, Danny only nods hesitantly with a soft 'okay', ready as hell to retreat to the relative safety of the bushes. Instead, he turns around barely a few steps away and maybe sort of shouts "Do you know a ghos – er, somebody named Marina?"

 

Dora gains a surprised expression, which is the _only_ expression besides apathy that she's had the whole time Danny has seen her. Something inside of him shivers with happiness.

 

"I… no, I cannot say that I do. I am not allowed to – " She cuts herself off with a harrowing expression, posture becoming folded and weak, "I… I…"

 

Taking this as a good sign (despite his gut telling him that it really is _not_ ), Danny pushes forward, stepping a little bit closer. "Well, Marina really wants to meet you. In fact, they're here right now. If you would like – "

 

Danny is cut off by the sound of denim fabric ripping wetly. He turns his gaze upward, shocked and frozen to his very core, as he watches an entirely new transformation happen.

 

The tearing sound was the webbed wings sprouting from the princess's rapidly enlarging back. Her light green skin ripples and grows unevenly, bright spurts of light or ectoplasm sometimes making their way out of crevices of scaly flesh as limbs grow bigger, bigger, still _bigger._

 

Soon, as if in some kind of CGI movie, a humongous dragon crouches in the park. The Dora that Danny had been quietly attempting to converse with had been swallowed by a new body, and a new wave of emotion. Even on such a foreign bone structure, Danny can tell that there is rage, hurt, and agony on her elongated face.

 

He has to cover his ears as the dragon bellows into the air, no doubt waking up half the town with the volume. The instinctive response he gained when he 'died' that tells him to kick off the ground and fly seems to fail him as he takes trembling steps backwards, neck craned upwards to keep the dragon within sight.

 

It is one of the most horrible things he's ever heard when the dragon begins to wail:

 

" _Why won't you let me leave!?"_

 

Danny finally flies into the air. It doesn't help him much when the only effect is now, instead of being yelled at from above, he's being yelled at right to his face.

 

" _Why do you always treat me like this!?"_

 

Desperately hoping that Marina has some kind of _ghost lesbian magic_ she can put into play to calm the raging Princess down, Danny retreats from the dragon just as it takes flight with towering wings. He can hear the rapid beating of air as he soars higher into the sky, trying to put as much distance between the town and the battle that will most likely break out.

 

 _I highly doubt she's chasing after me looking for a hug and a pep talk_ , Danny thinks bitterly as he looks over his shoulder at the pursuing dragon.

 

" _Why do you always invalidate my feelings like I'm a child!?"_

 

"Man, you are _really_ messed up," Danny taunts whenever Dora seems to be losing steam. He can't have her dropping into the middle of the town from exhaustion, or getting bored of the ghost-boy and trying to find someone else to destroy, "Have you ever thought about getting some therapy?"

 

A roar. The beating of wings picks up, and Danny flies as fast as he ecto-physically can with some fear in his (proverbial) heart.

 

"I could always hook you up with my school councilor!" Danny shouts back, cupping a hand over his mouth to further amplify his echoing voice above the rushing of wind, "I'm sure they could give you an online personality quiz or something!"

 

" _I want to go to the ball and feel normal!"_

 

Danny cringes, _that sounds kind of familiar._ He remembers times where he would try to do public, 'normal' things in order to - what? Prove his mental wellbeing to himself and his parents? It never worked, but sometimes the delusion of 'feeling normal' was too overwhelming to ignore.

 

Something sick twists in his gut at the taunting he just did, so he decides that it's high time to stop playing with the winged reptilian and start capturing it.

 

Detaching the Fenton Thermos from his back (he had carried it when he woke up to ice in his throat, thinking it was a battle waiting to happen. Turns out it was just Marina waving at him from a street corner, wanting to trick him into being her wingman for some gay princess romancing at 5 in the freaking morning) Danny does something really nauseating and flies backwards in order to get a good shot at the approaching dragon.

 

A part of him doesn't want to hurt Dora, thinking of the sweet, lonely woman who stood in the park and gazed wistfully at the moon like a lost lover, but another part is staring into the enraged eyes of Satan Themselves and can't help but summon some green mist in the air as a defense. He doesn't really know where it's coming from, but by the way part of his body is losing form, he's guessing that it makes him harder to hit.

 

Sure enough, once Dora gets close enough to attack, and a great spire of green tinged flames is breathed at the half-ghost, he only gets a few burns on his face and shoulders while a good chunk of him disappears into the fogginess.

 

Shaking his head with guilt, he yells a quick "Sorry!" before sucking the surprised Princess-turned-dragon into the thermos. It takes about a minute for the struggling being to finally be capped and safe ( _safe? Is that what you're calling it now?_ ) within the green soup tin.

 

Danny sags in the air, some thousands of yards off the ground and away from civilization. He has a hankering for some free-falling, but he doesn't dare in fear of the possible sightings that would be in the papers the next day.

 

He could just picture it; _Ghost-Boy of Amity Park Fights a Giant Dragon then Falls Over like a Goober._ Charming.

 

The worn-out ghost was expecting a miffed Marina to immediately accost him, yell for 'trapping her potential girlfriend in a soup can', then steal said soup can to try and let her out. Not to mention the dodgy explaining he'd have to do about using a known ghost hunter's equipment to trap his fellow ghosts.

 

 _Maybe I can claim that I died in an era where ghost hunting was cool?_ Danny considers as he lazily floats across the town, continuously descending as he goes. _So my obsession drives me to be a ghost hunter still?_

 

But, no – that wouldn't work. Very few of the ghosts he'd actually spoken to made any mention of an 'obsession.' Did that mean his parents were wrong? Did ghosts really just 'exist' as a post-mortem manifestation of consciousness and ectoplasm?

 

And he could only claim he was a ghost hunter in his past life to the ghosts that didn't know of his half-human status, which going by the rate that ghost attacks and sightings were happening now, wouldn't be a small number for long.

 

The pondering half-ghost releases Dora into the Ghost Portal via the Fenton Flusher, waving sadly at the silent blue swirl, making an important note to apologize to her later.

 

He stares into the glowing green depths of the portal, never ceasing to be surprised at how shallow it appears, despite knowing that there is an entire dimension on the other side. Meeting ghosts like Bloo, Marina, and Dora got Danny thinking some very interesting (but dangerous) thoughts.

 

 _I want to stick my head in and look around,_ Danny realizes, shivering at the thought of it. _But what if I get trapped, or my mom walks in and shoots me in the butt, or pushes me through and locks me out forever?_

 

_What would I even be getting locked into? Marina called it 'something like a home', so does that mean it looks like Earth only… ghostly? Or was she just making fun of me for not knowing?_

 

While deliberating, Danny doesn't notice the figure slowly creeping up from behind him. It is only when he feels a dusting of cold wind on the back of his neck does he jump, spin around, and fling out a fist to punch this _mofo_ in the –

 

Milky white eyes stare back as Bloo fades through the failed whirlwind attack.

 

"Oof!" Danny hits the floor like an idiot who keeps forgetting that he's a ghost and can phase through things or literally lose his physical form if he so chooses, "Bloo, geez! Scare me half to death why don't you…"

 

Instead of responding with a laughing 'lool' at the _awesome_ pun or even pointing their gaze towards the boy on the floor, Bloo reaches one slim arm out to close the portal, halting any feverish, ill-planned intentions of Danny's to explore the 'Ghost Zone.'

 

Some part of Danny questions these actions every time they happen, but only now does he decide to act on his previously inconsequential thoughts. Bloo was a 'good ghost', right? What did he have to be afraid of?

 

"Hey, Bloo…" Danny tries, but the ghost only hovers, still as a rock, with their hand attached to the raised lever. The portal doors shut with a clang. Bloo does not move. It is disconcerting, "Why do you always close the portal?"

 

…No response.

 

"What's in the Ghost Zone that you don't want me to see?"

 

…No movement.

 

"…Why are you always trying to keep me out? Is that why you kept closing the portal even though it sounded the alarms and got you captured?"

 

…Danny is becoming agitated. He stands, hovering slightly to match the height of the flat affect ghost. As they still won't turn around to look at the pestering ghost-child, Danny puts an impatient hand on their half-formed body in an attempt to turn them around forcefully, "Come on, Bloo, at least try to play charades and answer me. I might just get curious one day and go in alone myself, and then what would you – "

 

Bloo shifts slightly. It is the only warning Danny gets before a hand is shoved _inside_ of his torso. It touches something that flares painfully with cold, then hot, then… nothing.

 

" _Guh - !?"_ He grunts out harshly as his transformation is forcefully reverted, leaving him human and panicking on the floor with a white flash high in his mind. He only has a few seconds to recuperate before two hands grab his shoulders tightly, phasing him through floors at speeds he couldn't comprehend with open eyes, so he closes them with nausea.

 

Soon, Danny's sitting on his bed, alone. Not even the slightest tingle of chill could be felt in his throat. But a seemingly endless amount of prickling flesh coats him in skin that no longer feels like his own.

 

… _What the hell… What the hell!?_

 

He shivers and trembles on the sheets which rub too hard onto his skin, hot bile rising in his throat as he pushes down intense feelings of sickness. He is torn between crying for Bloo to _'come back I'm sorry I'm sorry what did I do'_ and screaming for his sister, his parents – _anybody_ but the ghost that… that…

 

Somewhere on the floor, his cellphone rings. He regards it as both his saving grace and a nightmare waiting to unfold.

 

Danny shakily picks up the cellphone, trying his damn hardest not to cry. But as soon as his metaphorical arm brushes up against the abused cold of his ghost core, he begins to weep like nothing was ever going to be okay.

 

Because it wasn't. It won't be okay.

 

Without even looking at who was calling, he picks up with a thin, high whine of distress.

 

"I – Danny?"

 

"Is this even worth it?" He whimpers, hands itching and picking and scratching at wounds that Bloo had treated with a cold hand just days ago. Now they feel like infections.

 

"W… what?"

 

"I thought I was doing okay. _I was doing okay!_ Now… Now I don't think I can do this anymore," Danny sobs, clutching at his chest. Oh, right; he didn't wear a binder that morning because his other body doesn't need it.

 

His 'better' body.

 

The one he doesn't hate in the same way as _this_ body.

 

"I don't know what to do… I don't know what to do…" His breath stutters and hitches; he doesn't even try to even it out, "I just wanna die. I just wanna die but it's too late… It's too late…"

 

"No, Danny, it's _not_ too late. Please, don't hang up – "

 

Danny tosses the phone out his open window (he'll regret it later but for right now he lets every urge come and go as it may.) It was open because he's an _idiot_ who keeps forgetting that he can phase through shit because he's fucking _dead_ and –

 

"I'm dead. _I'm dead."_

 

…but he was okay before… It isn't fair. It isn't worth it.

 

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry," he breathlessly apologizes to no-one.

 

_What am I even doing here? Why did I ever think I would be okay?_

 

His panic hits a crescendo mere minutes after the ascent began. Coming down is like surviving an atom bomb from the insides of a measly-built shelter. Opening the door and walking out to see ruined land tinted with radiation for miles around.

 

Feeling like you'll never be the same again.

 

The cold that lulls him into fitful, exhausted sleep at 7 a.m is bittersweet.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny tries on his two new binders under the watchful eye of his older sister. Which is kind of a problem, because he has wounds galore from several odd, non-human ghosts that just _loved_ to pop up in the middle of the night or early morning to wreak some havoc on the town. They often had a trick to beating them besides 'punch, fly, dodge, rinse and repeat', but he could usually only figure it out with the help of his two friends.

 

And despite his best efforts as 'the hero', Sam and Tucker occasionally sustained injury as well. Except unlike Danny, theirs takes weeks to heal, and would also scar depending on the severity. Tucker, whose parents were both professors and are out the most often, had taken to hoarding med kits in his bedroom under the guise of electronics (it is surprisingly easy to trick middle-age folk into thinking 'anything' is an electronic with a little creative redecorating.)

 

 _You're not really bonded with your friends until you clean out and stitch up their bleeding wounds,_ Danny quips as he swiftly switches from a black binder to a 'nude' colored one.

 

"Why do they call it 'nude' if it's the color of toast?" Danny asks to fill the intense silence Jazz had instated. Thankfully, it works, as Jazz can never resist the siren's call of being right by answering a question posed by her younger brother correctly.

 

"Well, they call it 'nude' because it looks like the average naked skin of a human," she answers like she's summarizing a scholarly peer-reviewed article from several years ago, but doesn't think Danny would understand the whole thing so she just re-stated the conclusion.

 

…Can you tell that Danny has been in school for too long? Because _he_ can. The hate for the public educational institution burns deep in his gut, just like all other student's awful fates.

 

… _Anyway…_ "But, like, what about people who _aren't_ white or light-skinned? I mean, I know we both are even though we're latinx, but still. And I'm pretty sure no one is this awful tan… bread… hummus color," he waves his hand around and raises an eyebrow down at the 'skin-colored' flesh vest he has on. It barely matches his own pale tan.

 

He knows he's being picky today, and is walking on a tight rope for 'complaining' so early about his new binders, but he just needs her to lower her hawk eyes for one second…

 

Jazz opens her mouth, ready to dish out some knowledge, then stops. Her face is frozen and it is, honestly, hilarious. "I… don't know, actually."

 

As his sister is too busy pondering the existence of white-washing products for not-so-sneakily racist purposes, Danny phases a nearby shirt onto his body to hide the damage. By the time Jazz comes out of her little world, her expression seems surprised at his dressing speed.

 

"So, they fit?" The older sister fusses about, picking up the black binder to be washed. Because apparently every piece of new clothing in the house must be washed at least once before being worn… or something. Thankfully, she doesn't seek and destroy (take away) the tan binder he already has on. He probably would've thrown down if she had.

 

"Yup!" Danny says as brightly as he dares, not wanting to draw attention to his mental wellbeing at this point in time. Besides, it could probably be told quite easily from the heavy bruising under his eyes and the increased amount of band-aids covering his arms. Some are even slapped on the side of his face and neck, and they certainly aren't from any ghost attacks.

 

Jazz nods once, standing from the bed and making her way towards the door. Before Danny can think any better of it, he reaches out a clammy hand to capture her retreating wrist. "Wait, Jazz…"

 

Danny sighs, running his free hand through his soap-washed hair. _Here goes nothing…_ "I'm uh… sorry. About what I said. I am glad that you gave my number out to the group and Sam. I probably never would've met them without you."

 

If Jazz was surprised at her moody little brother's apology, her face didn't show it. Instead, she just turned around and patted his head (which she probably wouldn't have done if he didn't shower that morning), "It's fine, little bro. I should be sorry, too. I shouldn't have assumed that just because Li is uh… like _that,_ that he would be after you for nefarious purposes."

 

Danny rolls his eyes at his sister's wording. Li? Nefarious? Hardly – he cries when he accidentally kills a bug.

 

Before any more sappy conversation can be made, a chill works its way up Danny's spine. It isn't his ghost sense (or is it?), which feels like ice cubes pushing their way through his sinuses, but it is similar enough to make the ghost-boy stiffen.

 

Jazz hisses in pain, yanking her wrist away from her brother's suddenly strong grip, "Owch, Danny. What's wrong?"

 

"I –" _I think there's a ghost in the house._ But he can't say that, because how would he explain it? Seconds later, his most recognizable side-effect of 'ghost sense' comes when condensation puffs from his nostrils. By the look and feel of it, this isn't your average ghost. Or ghosts.

 

A shadow appeared to darken the room slightly. The two siblings turn towards the window in confusion; simple clouds didn't normally create this near darkness, and seconds before it had been mostly sunny outside. Was this some sort of odd weather phenomenon?

 

The house begins to shake, rumble, and vibrate with intense intervals. Jazz immediately grabs her younger sibling and positions them under the door jamb, logically concluding that it was an earthquake (Amity Park does have a very old fault line somewhere. Jazz knows this because she knows _'everything._ ')

 

But then the laughter starts up. Hoots and hollers of nasty, pitchy joy were resounding throughout the house as a bike engine – a _real_ bike engine, not a razor sharp bicycle making odd noises on a ground it doesn't even touch – revved from somewhere downstairs.

 

A green light fills the house, finding no resistance in its takeover as the shadow from outside only grows darker. Two hearts beat in fear, one significantly slower than the other, as memories of other ghost attacks spring to mind.

 

The whine of an ecto-charged weapon causes Danny to jerk and shiver, trying to get away from the eldritch stench of energy that shouldn't exist in this world, but Jazz only grips him tighter in her arms. The smell of her raspberry toast breath and cakey, powdery plain deodorant sort of clogs his nose with reassurement. Sort of.

 

The green light shifts and grows as what sounds like a bike with two or more people on it crashes through the first floor rooms. Some part of Danny moans in despair; didn't they just get that part of the house fixed from the _last_ wheel-toting ghost to throw a violent party in the living room?

 

"Stay close to me," his sister whispers harshly, creeping forward towards the stairs and dragging Danny with her. Like some kind of barnacle, all the half-ghost can do is cling to his sister's side. Several tremors shake the house, but it's nothing like the first wave of quaking they endured.

 

A humanoid sound of someone mockingly howling at the moon followed by the laughter of what could be a teenage girl echoes around the house. Danny shivers in what his sister must mistake for fear, but in reality it's the pumping mantra of _fight fight fight_ in his sluggish veins. He's beaten ghosts like this before. The only reason he isn't down there punching and whirlwind kicking it out right now is because of the presence of the completely human girl he's currently attached to.

 

Jazz sneakily angles her favorite medium-sized ecto-blaster around the corner of the kitchen doorway. Had these been humans and not ghosts, Danny bets there would have been some sort of warning made. A 'get out of my house or I'll shoot.' But Jazz had most likely been instructed by their parents to shoot on sight, and to either capture or obliterate the enemy. Once again, shivers run down Danny's spine, but it has nothing to do with the presence of the ectoplasmic beings.

 

A sharp rumble shook the house, causing the currently four-legged being to stumble forward and into the open. Jazz fires her weapon before they could be fully spotted, hitting the wall just next to a gleaming black bike with two thin figures perched on top.

 

"Whoa!" One of them yells, pin wheeling their arms as they fall off of the bike, "Hey! What the hell was that for!?"

 

Danny scrutinizes the two ghosts and their kitchen-destroying bike. The bike looks like something out of a vintage magazine, where half-naked women would be posed in unnecessarily sexual positions next to a gleaming motorcycle. On top was a sitting girl, dressed in what looked to be a mix between late 70's fashion and something found out of a steampunk novel. She had bright green cyber punk locks that bounced with every movement.

 

Standing up angrily from next to the bike was a person with dirty, lanky blond hair and ratty, grunge-style clothes. Their many pant chains rattling reminded Danny of Sam's Goth style, only his was glowing green with both ectoplasm and splashes of color. He was wearing that somewhat ridiculous style from the 90's where people would wear a skirt and a pair of baggy jeans underneath.

 

"Ugh, Johnny. Hurry up and get us out of here!" The cyber-punk ghost complains loudly, folding her arms as if she didn't just get shot at.

 

"Fine, Kitty, alright," the grunge guy grumbles, swinging a baggy leg over the bike to straddle it. His red skirt hikes up to dangerous levels, but thankfully he was wearing something underneath. "Let's ditch this place. I bet there's _something_ fun to do in this dump of a town."

 

Jazz growls under her breath, powering up the ecto-weapon once more. Danny could only stare after the couple as they revved up the bike, worried and confused all at once. What if Jazz shot these ghosts and it turned out they were 'good' ghosts? Would his parents capture them and torture them like they'd always threatened to do? Could Danny prevent this somehow?

 

Just before Jazz fired her weapon, the shadow clouding the house shifted again, causing another tremble. At the same time, a loud revving noise came from the bike, signaling that the two humanoid ghosts were readying themselves to drive through the busted open front door. Danny used these totally coincidental circumstances to jerk his head up harshly, banging his crown against the underside of the ecto-weapon.

 

His sister gasps in surprise at the unexpected kick-back aiming right for her shoulder as the ecto-weapon misfires, hitting the ceiling instead of the ghosts. They ride out of the house and bump down the steps, disappearing quicker than Danny thought they would down the street. Within a handful of seconds, he can no longer feel the icy chill that accompanies a ghost in the near vicinity.

 

Danny let's go of Jazz as slowly and as non-relieved as he can pretend to be, but he can tell from his sister's curiously examining eyes that she was thinking of something, or adding a new note to her mental 'Danny' notebook. It was unnerving, so the half-ghost secretly cheered when the home phone rang.

 

"I'll get it!" Danny stated quickly, already hopping over the upturned kitchen chairs to reach the living room. The damage was loads better than what Zippy-Doo-Da did, but they'd still have to find a replacement kitchen table, and maybe fix that hole in the wall. Maybe. In a month or so. No big rush.

 

The caller I.D says 'Vladimir', which makes Danny let out a slightly hysterical laugh. What are the odds?

 

He picks up with a "Do you always somehow know when I'm having a ghost attack, or is this just one big crazy coincidence that keeps happening?"

 

"Hel – _What?"_

 

Danny feels Jazz come up behind him, but he ignores her inquisitive stare by plopping onto the slightly dirty floor. Thankfully, the overprotective sister is not too alarmed at his sudden movements, and instead pulls out her cellphone to most likely call their parents to inform them of the attack and the two ghosts that got away.

 

"Are you being attacked _and_ trying to chat on the phone with me? Again, Daniel?" He sounds slightly resigned, and like he's rubbing his forehead to stave off a stress headache. It is incredibly funny to the half-ghost.

 

"Nah," Danny snorts and kicks off his shoes. He probably wasn't going anywhere now. "They left."

 

"They?" _Man, this guy is thorough._

 

"Yeah, there were two teens on a bike. Didn't seem too concerned when my sister tried to blow a hole in them, though." Jazz shoots him a look from across the room. He only grins cheekily in reply, feeling a bit like Tucker when his technopath friend showed a distressing lack of self-preservation skills.

 

"Hm, I see." The man muses audibly. Danny does _not_ see what Vlad does, but he doesn't want to interrupt whatever _weird Vlad things_ his phone friend is currently enacting, so he stays silent. "I was actually aiming to speak with your parents about something. However, going by the lack of general noise in the background, I am assuming that they are not home?"

 

…Danny can't tell if that was an insult about how loud his parents are or not. He lets it slides. "Yup. They're… out doing something. I don't actually know what. But they'll be home within the next…" _Think of a reasonable time frame, think of a reasonable time frame!_ "Five minutes to an hour." _That's not a reasonable time frame, oh my god!_

 

"That's…" _An unreasonable time frame, ugh,_ I know. "…quite alright, my boy. I'll simply call back between the intervals you have suggested."

 

So Danny says goodbye with some disappointment. He wanted to tell Vlad all about his new binders! And how much he was _not_ going to get them wrecked by ghosts.

 

It'll be sneaky, like taking off a bra. Before transforming, he would take off his binder and hand it to either Tucker or Sam to hide in their lockers, bags, down their pants, _wherever!_ It just needed to be kept safe until the ghost was caught and Danny wasn't in danger of accidentally transforming back into a binder-wearing human and getting it ruined. Again.

 

Why must the patterns of his life always end in violence?

 

"Mom and Dad are just a few minutes away," Jazz interrupts the loafing Danny, who had begun to nibble on his already ruined nails, "…and don't bite your nails – they're filthy!"

 

Danny feels a bit high on adrenaline right now, so he only rolls his eyes and pulls himself from the floor up to the couch to sit. Jazz comes to sit down next to him, throwing one arm over his shoulder and turning the TV on with the other. It makes him wonder where the gun went (and then his arm brushes up against something hard coating the insides of his sister's back, and now he knows…)

 

Half of a boring family-oriented movie about 'trusting your parents to make the right decisions for you, no matter what', their parents come home with a whirlwind of noise and a shouted "Kids!"

 

"In here," Jazz calls back. They both sort of just lounge on the couch with apathetic mindsets. Being two dirty kids that just faced down a pair of ghosts is only therapeutic for so long before it becomes repetitive.

 

Danny is abruptly being swooped up into the strong arms of his mother, rocking back and forth as she plants a sweet kiss on the side of his head. Something inside of him lights up. "Oh, I'm so sorry, baby! We didn't mean to leave you two all alone here."

 

The embraced boy slides his happy gaze over to Jazz, who appears to be receiving the same treatment from their father, only she escaped being picked up and coddled like a baby. Danny's not complaining, but he's pretty sure that if he wasn't currently dead on his feet (ha!) he would be more embarrassed at the treatment.

 

The two parents sit down on the couch, one child in each lap. They give simultaneous sighs of relief, showing just how much they must've been worrying.

 

"We know how you feel about ghosts, Danny," his mother begins, carding an un-gloved hand through his hair. It makes him shiver, but also shoots warmth down through his body at the familial familiarity. "So we're going to set up an anti-specter defense system that will be functional at all times."

 

 _Uh-oh._ All of Danny's good feelings evaporate instantly. _This can't be good._

 

If his parents had decided this and told their completely human, completely alive, completely weak and tender young child this in an alternate life, he would've been sobbing with relief. He would've raised his grades, danced all around under the sunshine every morning, and spoke more to his friends. Like a healthy person does (or what Danny _thinks_ a healthy person does.)

 

…but he isn't a human, alive, weak and tender young child. He's a half-ghost, half-dead, strong and hardy young _boy_ who revels in the way his limbs swing in heavy arcs and his core powers up with a cold hiss whenever he shoots energy from his palms.

 

The way mid-battle violence keeps him up at night, jittery with nerves and _excitement,_ is no ruse. Danny has grown to love the feeling of a fight, especially when he _wins_ the fight. And so far, he's been winning _a lot._

 

Being a crying, sniveling little boy who can't even lift himself up just doesn't suit him anymore, he thinks.

 

Still, his parents are waiting for his response, however false it may be. "That's great, mom."

 

She must've been excepting for a bit more of a show, because her only response is a concerned hum. Danny melts into her stomach, nevertheless feeling more relaxed and safe than he has in a while. All those times where his parents dismissed him for his fear of ghosts is practically wiped away with one loving hand patting the shaken mind of a neglected teenager.

 

…And then the phone rings.

 

"Don't answer that."

 

"Danny!" It's his sister, trying to ruin his fun.

 

"What? That old man hung up on me. Let me be petty."

 

His dad snickers and punches him lightly on the shoulder. His mom rolls her eyes so far into her head, Danny can feel the force of it without looking.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"How did you manage this again?"

 

The newly dubbed 'Team Phantom' all hike their way through the closed Amity Park Zoo trails, every now and then pausing to note something down, or to fill some quota for the closing staff they replaced. A lone peacock hovers anxiously just beyond their reach, staying in the safety of the areas now gated off.

 

"Well, y'know – money can't hurt," is all Sam responds with, shrugging a bit uncomfortably. "Look, up ahead. That building is where we'll be sleeping tonight."

 

They point a finger up a paved hill, towards a rinky-dink little office that looks like it belongs more in a skyscraper to be shared between several interns and less like something that would be in a zoo.

 

"Great. Sleepover with the pandas in a refurbished outhouse," Tucker grumbles, stretching his body every which way to try and get the best signal on his PDA. "I know I can use this thing without Wi-Fi, but it still kind of sucks not being able to."

 

"Tucker!" Sam admonishes, easily snatching the device from her friend's hands to get his attention. "We're supposed to be observing the donated Chinese Panda's stress levels while in captivity, remember? This is our only chance at such a big percentage of extra credit, so we need all the eyes and help we can get."

 

The techno-geek sighs, retrieving his stolen electronic with a roll of his eyes. "Yea, yea - I've already read about this before. We're wasting too much money on trying to preserve a species that practically _wants_ to go extinct instead of spending it on a multitude of others that would have a greater population outcome. Why do I need to stare at some lazy bears for an entire night when I could just write the paper from articles that already exist?"

 

Danny watches his friends with slight concern, but is mostly using his kind-of-awesome night vision to spot all of the free-to-wander animals that his two companions can't see like he does. He scopes out some more flighty peacocks, but also comes across a particularly large turtle. He wonders if it's asleep, or just really, really old.

 

"Why are you laughing, Danny?" Sam questions. Tucker looks thankful that the vegan's attention is no longer on him.

 

"Oh, nothing," he replies with a mischievous look. Seeing that turtle made him think of Vlad; how could he not laugh?

 

Both Sam and Tucker raise an unimpressed eyebrow. Danny also laughs at that; again, how can he _not?_ His friends really were a riot sometimes.

 

The three teens climb up some rickety wooden stairs that fashion more like a ladder, Danny going first so that everyone can pass him their sleeping bags. It probably would seem odd if anyone else were still at the zoo to look – the smallest kid being the one to hoist the supplies up. Super strength didn't always have to be used for super activities, after all.

 

They don't bother flicking on any lights; the only one available is a lamp on top of the desk, and that thing looks old and fluorescent. They all silently agree that it would most likely just blind them, so Tucker opens the wide-pane windows for a clear view down into the panda exhibit, blue light of the late evening coating every surface of the cage below.

 

And what an exciting exhibit it is.

 

"This is boring," Tucker announces about an hour and a half in, never the one to be able to sit still for long unless he was focused on an enjoyable task. "All they do is sit and eat stuff."

 

"They're probably just as bored as we are, only it's an everyday, lifetime sort of deal," Sam informs them, pulling the binoculars from her face to turn around and address her teammates. "Do you think we should take some pictures or a video to prove we were here, or will our ticket stubs be enough?"

 

"I'd say it's too dark to see, but it isn't for me," Danny sing-songs, rocking back and forth on his crate seat. Tucker throws an arm out to try and push him over, but he just swings his body to easily avoid it. "If Lancer tries to tell us we need more evidence, we can mail him a packet of panda crap. How does that sound?" He snorts, "We're literally replacing the staff for an entire night – how much more 'officially at the zoo' can you get?"

 

Tucker snickers and Sam rolls their eyes, exasperated but fond going by their wry smile. It makes Danny feel kind of fuzzy inside to see his friends happy. Bored to absolute tears, but content nonetheless.

 

Of course, that's when an entire avalanche tries to come out of his nose.

 

" _Fuck – "_ Danny cuts off, choking on his own breath, "Oh, man – this isn't good."

 

"What? What's not good?" Sam questions as Tucker quickly straightens himself from his slump. Both crowd around the stiff ghost-boy, searching his face for faster answers.

 

"I – urgh _, god_ – I think a really powerful ghost is about to appear," Danny warns, rubbing his nose with one hand to try and rid himself of the feeling and shoving down the urge to cough by swallowing repeatedly.

 

Tucker looks skeptical. "Yea, but – remember the last time that happened, and it was just the box ghost? What if it's a repeat of that all over again?"

 

Danny does remember, mostly because that was a really shitty day for him. The whole warehouse ordeal, the creepy stares he kept feeling on his back… oh, and forgetting his binder. That was fun.

 

In fact, he's starting to feel that creepy, bad, unlucky prickling on his neck right now. He stands, running his night-vision gaze across every dim surface, now proficient in the ways that a ghost can phase through any object that would catch you by surprise.

 

"Something feels… wrong." Danny and co. had swept the room for cameras, and found none, so the ghost-boy allows himself an early transformation, just in case. "I think we should – "

 

He barely even hears the twin screams of his friends before he's sent flying out the window, a heavy pressure on his core that forces him down until he's smashing into the ground with an explosion of light. The sound of animals fleeing and going silent all at once gives him a sense of vertigo along with lethargically throbbing pain in his abdomen and back.

 

Before Danny can even utter a sound, he's being lifted by some sort of force and tossed, head-first, towards the side of the mixed material cage he had crashed through the top of. Splinters of wood pierce the softness of his face, misshaping his nose and mouth as ectoplasmic blood spurts forth from the break.

 

Absolutely flummoxed and spun on his head, Danny groans as flashes of fire and ice erupt all over his body, most sharply from his face but creating a deep ache in his stomach and spine. A heavy thumping noise is approaching from what his messed up equilibrium can tell is his left.

 

He hastily tries to do that trick where he unexpectedly fades through the ground, only to pop up behind the enemy (or, in this case, ten miles away from the enemy, preferably with his two friends in tow) only to feel a crushing vice close around the nape of his neck, yanking him up into the blindness of the air.

 

Danny flails, grabbing at anything and everything. It doesn't help – the skin on his throat is being bruised and ripped backwards as the thing holding onto him starts shaking him around like a rag doll.

 

One second he's being manhandled like an unruly game attempting to escape from its hunter, the next his face is on the ground again, causing him to bite off half of his tongue and spit out a glob of ectoplasm.

 

 _My tongue,_ he notes deliriously, _is gone._

 

And then the ghost grabs him by the foot, and he begins to _scream._ He screams like when he first died in the lab, when barely a few days later he dropped in the middle of a ghost coming through the portal, and was beaten soundly by something that looked like it belonged in the fridge and yet had the power to control wind and speak a convoluted language.

 

" _Danny!"_ Someone calls, but he can't hear them, not really, not when his left leg feels like it's being torn straight off of his body while a deep, robotic cackling sounds right next to his head. He's hung upside down next to something angular and _freaking on fire,_ his bloodied and smashed face nearly banging against it.

 

He begins to thrash, trying to keep himself from closing his eyes again but also trying to keep his body _away_ from the flaming object that is seemingly laughing at his futile struggling. It sounds like rusty gears grinding together while nuts and bolts are dropped down on top.

 

Then the laughter is abruptly stopped, ending in a pained grunt. Danny is also dropped, yelling, to the ground, landing on his face _again._ He groans and tries to get to his feet, thankful of the helping hand that aids him and also does not do something like grip a part of his body and _try to pull it off._

 

"Danny!" Sam is there, and she's got the Fenton Anti-Creep stick. Danny immediately pulls back and away from it, the anti-ghost serum practically vibrating with disgusting intentions. "Are you okay? Oh, god, that's a lot of uh… ectoplasm coming out of your face right now…"

 

"Uor 'ink I 'on't 'ow 'at?" Danny tries to speak, but his tongue is just… It's soup in his mouth that he's trying not to swallow. He thinks that the other half of it is somewhere on the ground, but he can't tell where because there are also _other_ bits of unidentifiable ectoplasm littering the leafy ground. All from him.

 

Who was it that mentally claimed they were winning fights left and right again? Oh, right – this idiot.

 

"Fuck," Danny hisses eloquently, glad that those combination of sounds don't require the full use of a slimy tentacle muscle to make. "Wha' hi' me?"

 

Thankfully, Sam understands him to an extent. "It's like this giant cyborg metal thing with a flaming Mohawk. It's got a bunch of guns and stuff, and – _it's fucking coming this way –"_ Sam panics, throwing her arms out and around Danny to try and shove him out of harm's way as she brandishes the bat again.

 

Danny turns, gets a good look at what he's up against, and doesn't blame himself for missing the function of the human body that would allow him to piss his pants. Hazmat suit. Whatever.

 

It's huge. It's bulky. It's loud and grinning in a scary face down at the two children huddled together. It looks like all the things that Danny thinks would be prime nightmare material rolled into one.

 

"Hello, _halfa_ whelp. It is finally time we meet."

 

It even has the terrifying mechanical voice that reminds Danny of a mix between the Terminator and a Predator. Holy hell.

 

A tiny whimper works its way up his throat, but it's stopped unceremoniously when a simply _enormous_ hand made of twisting servos and metal plates snatches him by the throat, lifting him easily up and away from Sam's protection. He is pulled closer to that horrifying face of doom, getting a close-up look of the way its blocky teeth slot together.

 

He, briefly, imagines those teeth biting down on his fingers and snapping each and every one off to the bone. If he had one, his bladder would be emptied by now. It's just a simple fact.

 

"I am Skulker," it says with a barely restrained mocking laugh. Its beady eyes are surrounded by a black swirling chaos made up of intricately placed wires. "I am the greatest hunter of the Ghost Zone. You, Phantom," it snorts out a cloud of hot air, "are my prey."

 

Danny would make a quip, most likely about breath mints, or 'a congratulations are in order', or 'thanks, but no thanks.' But apparently he has lungs right now, because not a sound comes out, only strained grunting. The realization that his brain, once again, passed over some _very vital information_ when transforming him gave his legs a little extra jerking kick to them as he struggles.

 

Instead, he lobs an ectoplasmic spit ball right into the thing's mechanic eye. It hits home with a satisfyingly gross _squish._

 

'Skulker' yells in outrage, not dropping their captured prey like Danny had hoped but instead grinding their metal hand in tighter into his neck. He wheezes, hands scrabbling fruitlessly against the grey slating. It doesn't do very much, only pinches his fingers and threatens to tear them off by the skin and muscle. He feels his knuckles pop out of place.

 

Then Danny is being punched, repeatedly, in the gut. One – two – three; the pain never stops as he increasingly loses focus on what is happening. The way his hips are jarred makes him take heady notice on how his left leg feels like its dangling by a thread. If he had a stomach, he's sure it would be only sloshy pulp by now, spilling out of every possible orifice in a chunky, acidic red and green stew.

 

Finally, something gives. With a sound like a wet paper towel ripping, some part of Danny is being forcefully shoved off-kilter. It breeds a cloud of hysteria in the teens' mind, teeming with _it hurts it hurts oh god what happened what's wrong I can feel my legs but it hurts it hurts make it stop._

 

With a satisfied noise, Skulker drops the _halfa_ to the ground. He crumples like a pile of goo, transformation reverting with a flash of light. Then he begins to wheeze, almost sobbing, as wide, dis-believing eyes roll to the whites in pain.

 

" _Aug - …gghh…"_ Danny moans. He's never felt so absolutely _beaten_ before. He can't feel some parts of himself, but the other parts he feels all too much. Shots of pain rocket through him like bullets, his vision going in and out as he loses control over his basic bodily functions. _"Hhhrnnn…"_

 

"You're a true prize, I assure you," Skulker tells the writhing _halfa_ almost conversationally, "but I must confess – I expected a great deal more in terms of a fight."

 

" _Ffff… Eat… shit…"_ Danny manages, hissing and coughing and spitting the whole time. He sees a constant flow of glowing green and red coating his chest, hands, and side. He doesn't want to know when his tongue came back.

 

"No matter," Skulker assures, pulling out a familiar looking cube-like device from one of their many built-in storage units, "You will still provide him with – "

 

And then Sam – beautiful, courageous, warrior Sam – nail bats that chattering monkey in the back of its head, sounding like they knocked a few bolts loose while they were at it. Danny spots Tucker sneaking up behind the hulking ghost cyborg, brandishing his PDA like it was a weapon.

 

Danny wants to smack himself in the face and yell at Tucker that he _can't beat the cyborg with just a –_

 

Then his mind pauses, rewinds, and tries again. Except maybe the technopath could somehow do… _something._ The cyborg was all about electricity and _stuff_ , right? Maybe, if Tucker could plug into them _or something,_ then they could just shut them off like a computer, shove them into the Fenton Thermos, and get off scott-free. Easy peasy.

 

…but it was not to be.

 

The back of Danny's shirt is grabbed in one hulking hand while the other is used to sweep Sam off her feet, knocking her a few yards away and directly into the advancing Tucker. Some part of the struggling half-ghost is thankful that this adversary was one of the ones that disregarded humans altogether. He would never want his friends to experience the level of pain that he does now.

 

Danny feels the way his tan binder twists and stretches in protest at the harsh treatment, gripping his ribs and chest in a complicated vine of pressure. Practically unable to breathe, the human ghost-boy looks Skulker in their angry face as he is lifted to eye-level.

 

He can't tell if he's peed himself or not yet because he's in _so much pain._ He hangs, limp, as another steamy release of hot air puffs out of the cyborg's nose and mouth. It looks like it's about to say something, but it gets interrupted when it swings around to dodge a thrown object, returning fire in the form of a plasma gun. From the lack of terrified screams, however, it seems it missed.

 

Skulker snarls as Danny's shirt rips loose, sending him down to the floor once more. He feels the way the fabric slips from his shoulders and flutters away, landing some feet to his right as he lays on the ground with nary a thought to even attempt to move.

 

Instead, the next thing grabbed and used to hoist his agonized body into the air is his _new_ binder, which really just enrages him to no end.

 

So he lets the asshole know.

 

" _Seriously?"_ Danny questions cattily, startling the hunter by his sudden lack of obvious fear. "I _just_ got this binder. I _literally just_ got this binder, and you're going to just _fuck it up?_ Unbelievable."

 

What's even more unbelievable is that Skulker even looks a little bit cowed at Danny's short tongue-lashing, but they quickly set their face back into nightmare-mode, holding a smoking arm gun up to the indignant teen's face, "Listen, you – "

 

"Danny!" Sam calls from somewhere, "You've gotta slip out of your binder - _now!"_

 

 _Fuck,_ Danny mentally anguishes as he hastily obeys without question, _how am I gonna explain this to Jazz?_

 

Suddenly, he's free, but not before Skulker appears to malfunction, limbs twitching every which way as his voice glitches in and out of coherency. Danny spots a jittery Tucker dance away from the spit-fire cyborg sans PDA. He is surprised to see the device left behind, now attached to the back of Skulker's shoulder by some complicated wire-crossing technique.

 

"Tuk, what did you _do?"_ Danny questions as Sam shoves him into a hoodie they brought along in case it got cold, pain leaving him almost breathless and feeling weaker than a new born lamb, "Why is your PDA stuck to him like a tick?"

 

"Less talking; more capturing!" Sam hustles, uncapping the soup tin and pointing it at the spasming ghost in front of them.

 

Before she can completely open the Fenton Thermos and suck Skulker inside, however, the cyborg opens its wings and powers up some _really loud_ rockets that allow it to blast into the air and disappear within a few heart-stopping moments.

 

There's a bit of a stunned silence that spans the next ten minutes, the trio watching the sky for any signs of 'the hunter's' return. When nothing else 'exciting' happens, Danny is the first to speak.

 

"That motherfucker took my binder," he whispers in blatant awe. He watched it fly away, tan binder still mostly pristine and fully intact in its blocky metal hand. That asshole didn't even _try_ to drop it.

 

If he weren't bleeding with predominantly red and green waterfalls from his body, he bets that somebody would've slapped him on the back of the head for saying something not fitting of the situation.

 

"Do you… are you okay?" Tucker asks, breathing a bit heavy with eyes dilated into pin pricks. Danny can practically smell the fear coming out of the perspiring human, and isn't that a weird thing to notice?

 

Which brought him back to his transformation earlier… Why did he feel like he had lungs? Usually, he didn't need air to speak or move or anything. But then he felt the way the fleshy pockets spasmed in his body when he tried to speak.

 

He wonders when his brain started to filter out when certain organs appeared. He hadn't had a panic attack dealing with becoming aware of bodily systems that _weren't supposed to be_ _there_ in a while, so maybe… He was involuntarily adapting?

 

"Danny?" Sam whispers worriedly, leaning down to look him in the eyes. The ghost-boy startles out of his daze, jerking his body and causing a quake of pain to shimmer down.

 

" _Aauuughh…"_ Danny moans out instead of answering, _"wwwhhyyy… kgghh…"_ He hunches over, explicitly and _painfully_ aware of the way his stomach feels like someone shoved an entire truck wheel inside, stretched it beyond its limits, then agonizingly slid the rubber back out. His leg doesn't even feel like a leg.

 

"Oh, man, this is kind of more messed up than I was hoping for," Tucker clutches at his bare head, apparently having lost his trademark red beret in the scuffle. "How are we gonna explain that three teens had a sleepover in the zoo, somehow broke the panda cage, and probably messed up these incredibly delicate and stressed out pandas for life!?"

 

"I feel like I got fucked by a truck, you guys," Danny informs his two disgusted friends with a more than just amazement in his tired voice, "Just… slid a tire in and out of me repeatedly."

 

"Please, Danny," Sam pinches the bridge of her nose as her brow furrows with exasperation, "Don't use sex metaphors after getting beaten to hell and back by a giant cyborg ghost that calls itself 'a predator.' I'm begging you."

 

Danny gives a choked giggle tainted with hysteria, listing slightly to the side as his vision swims in and out of focus.

 

"Hey, hey, hey…" Tucker grabs his friend, trying to ignore how ectoplasm and blood mixes together like oil and water into his clothing, "We gotta get him out of here. And maybe like… call the police and say a ghost attacked the pandas?"

 

"Yeah, you're right," Sam easily agrees, switching who gets to carry what as Tucker takes the bags and she takes 'the Danny', "We'll just say we saw a cyborg ghost trying to hurt the animals, we ran and hid, and Phantom came to save the day, but our friend Danny was hit when the cyborg uh… fell from the sky?"

 

"I like it – have it on my desk ready to be published by tomorrow morning," Tucker jokes, hiking the bags up onto his back and making his way up and out of the… still open cage door. "Oh… I think we made a mistake."

 

The pandas are gone.

 

"You fucked up," Danny giggles, hanging limply from Sam's back, occasionally spitting red blood out of his mouth and onto the ground. It glows iridescently.

 

"Shut up," Tucker replies, irritated. "We'lll just… have to say they got out when we weren't looking. Okay? Okay."

 

"Danny stop spitting blood everywhere – our story won't make sense if you leave _human_ evidence of battle behind!" Sam admonishes, but is still obviously worried out of their mind. They continuously look over their shoulder at their nearly-unconscious friend, taking in a new injury almost every time.

 

"Nah, look." Danny points a finger down at the ground where his glowing blood sits. It slowly begins to dissolve into something closer to ectoplasm.

 

"…Whatever works for you works for me," Tucker says hastily, jogging out of the panda cage and taking a cursory glance around. "No one's sent the cavalry yet, but with our luck, someone heard that commotion as soon as it started."

 

Sam sighs and takes one last look back into the ruined panda habitat, now void of its fuzzy black and white inhabitants, "At least I know for sure that they took the cameras out."

 

"What? Why?" Tucker looks bewildered, but in a catty way. Most likely due to his hate of this whole excursion. He never wanted to come here, anyway, and _now_ look what happened!

 

"They cited that the pandas might get even more anxious if they felt like they were being watched."

 

"That's stupid. They're being watched every day by random people!"

 

"I know, Tucker. I know."

 

Danny tunes his bickering friends in and out, secretly screaming at every bump or movement Sam makes as he rides on his big friend's back.

 

All that his messed up head can come up with right now is _'Is this real? This is so surreal. Did that just happen? Binder? Lungs? Heart? Blood? Ectoplasm-blood?_

 

… _Skulker?'_

 

It is incredibly unhelpful and frustrating, and it makes Danny think that he has a concussion of sorts. He hopes those heal just as fast as everything else does.

 

His mind filters back to the time when he first got attacked by a ghost, in the lab. He wonders why he automatically thought of that singular event earlier when 'fighting' (his mind whines. He tells it to suck it up) Skulker, despite spades of similar events occurring afterwards. That ghost didn't even seem _hard_ now, compared to what he's had to fight off these past few months.

 

He remembers the way his parents dismissed him, laying painfully on the floor like the world had just ended. How it broke his heart into tiny pieces to hear his mother talk down to him when all he wanted was a hug. How his father's eyes only shone for the mention of a ghost and not his injured son.

 

…but now he knows what his ghost-half has done, and how he didn't _look_ hurt when down in the lab. Maybe his blood, even then, was dissolved into the ectoplasm that disappears when without high content. He looked… spooked. His injuries had practically healed by the next day, but he was so unbelieving of what was happening that he just…

 

…Maybe it _was_ his fault…

 

Danny involuntarily begins to sniffle, light tracks of tears sliding down his face and being absorbed into Sam's broad back.

 

"Danny?" Sam asks in confusion, "What's wrong? Does it hurt too much? Should we stop and… call your parents?"

 

What? Good _god,_ no. "No it's… I'm…" Danny thinks about Bloo. He stops that thought with an iron anvil. "It's… been a long… week."

 

Tucker makes a sound of understanding, looking the trashed boy's beaten body up and down with an "I hear ya'."

 

Several minutes pass. They make it past the entrance of the zoo, thankfully having been given a spare set of keys in case something went wrong so that they could get in and out. Once again, Danny marvels over how Sam's apparently humongous inheritance got them the privileges to do so many outrageous things.

 

_Speaking of…_

 

"Have I told you guys about the dragon and mermaid lesbian ghosts I talked to this week?" Danny opens with. He does not expect the response he earns, however.

 

Tucker whips around, gasping out a breathy _'yessss'_ like it's the best damn thing he's ever heard; ghost lesbians. He even begins to do a little jig, triumphant expression on his face. "Ha! I fucking _knew it!_ Sam, you owe me _big time!"_

 

Sam looks put-upon, a sour expression on their face. _"Uuughh_ Danny… why did you have to tell him thaaat…"

 

"What?" Danny asks, thoroughly confused.

 

"I bet Sam that ghosts could have sexualities because they also have perceived genders and she said that ghosts wouldn't if we were going by the obsessions theory and I _won!"_ Tucker exclaims in a rush, still dancing around like a _maroon._

 

Huh. "That's dumb," Danny states, blowing a wet raspberry into Sam's thick neck as punishment.

 

They squeal, and Danny regrets his not-very-well-thought-out actions when his ride begins to bounce around, causing spots to dance behind the eyelids that he squeezes shut in pain.

 

"Whoops!" Sam snorts, "Sorry 'bout that."

 

"You are _not,"_ Danny sibilates, clutching harshly at his friend's back and arms. Not too harshly, though, or else he might grab a hole through her skin. And that was not a fun thought to have.

 

Another few minutes of contemplative silence pass, each teen caught up inside their own heads. They all silently stew and anguish over the days to come – knowing that even _captured_ ghosts often came back within a short period of time. When would this uncaptured ghost return?

 

 _Except Lunch Ghost,_ Danny considers, brow furrowing slightly with the thought _. I wonder what happened to them. Everyone else has come back between a week and a month._

 

Danny tries not to think of their most repeat offender; the Box Ghost. It will give him an ulcer.

 

A ghost specifically out for Danny's head was a new one… and it sure was an unpleasant concept to be aware of. It made every shadow a literal, hulking, walking nightmare with teeth that fit together like zippers and a body made of nothing but weapons that could make Phantom toss his cookies like a nervous schoolchild.

 

A prickling feeling erupts on the back of Danny's bruised neck, causing shivers of both pain and anticipation to travel down his spine in the form of tiny-fingered hands. He lifts his head and rolls it side to side like a blood hound, scoping out the area.

 

Nothing. Not a soul in sight. He doesn't even feel the telltale coldness that accompanies the sense of a ghost, and despite the hair-raiser just a few seconds ago, a cold chill wasn't the same as a _cold chill._

 

…the half-ghost dismisses it for another time. He's too tired to think about it right now – if it isn't attacking him, he doesn't care.

 

The trio somehow make it safely to Danny's house without any interruptions. He really plays up the 'passed out and beaten to hell' as much as he can, despite being able to feel the way his stomach slowly seems to settle back into place, and how his nose feels less ruined and more sore. It looks more believable than earlier, however, when he was akin to that of roadkill. He never could've convinced (or had his friends convince) his parents to forego a visit to the doctors if he was carted in like _that._

 

So Danny lays in his bed, hours after the whole 'I am the predator and you are my prey' ordeal, and pretends that he can't feel the way a specter hovers in the corner of his room; watching, waiting.

 

He falls asleep with a cold hand rubbing into his hair.

 


	20. spring fling my body down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Violence, body horror, light gore, gender dysphoria, dissociation

 

"Nothing is adding up about you anymore."

 

Danny blearily peels open his crusty eyes, making out the blue darkness first. He sees a silhouette at the foot of his bed, but nothing in his body is warning him of danger right now, so he doesn't treat them as anything other than another shadow in the room.

 

"You're lying to me about something."

 

… _Jazz?_ His eyes close again, dragged down into the warm ocean of sleep. He can't seem to fight it away; there is no urgency or incentive to do so.

 

"I don't know what, and I don't know why… but I _will_ find out."

 

The exhausted half-ghost hears the sound of someone leaving his room and closing the door behind them. He yawns, breathing out sleepiness and breathing in wakefulness, feeling how a cold hand cards through his hair, another hand coming down to press on his wounded face.

 

"Bloo," Danny begins, not bothering to beat around the bush at this point in time, "mind explaining just what the hell you did to me the other day?"

 

Not a single 'lool' is uttered from the currently invisible ghost, their hands continuing their roving ways as they take away the pain of Danny's rapidly healing injuries.

 

The ghost-boy wishes that his touch aversion extended to the nurse ghost, but it doesn't. The coldness of Bloo has always felt like heaven; a sucking, devouring force that eats away at his pain and negative emotions until he only feels like he's floating in warm stew.

 

And so Danny sighs, welcoming the way the unseen hands curl around his leg and massage out the pain of having it nearly torn off… again. Some mildly irrational part of his mind is trying to warn him that if that keeps happening, he'd end up like Vlad one day – walking around with a cane because ghosts wouldn't stop tugging on his leg like it's a free-for-all pulley.

 

He stays like that for a few hours, the blue morning greeting him from his curtained window as the sun moves above the horizon. He allows Bloo to 'apologize' for… whatever happened down in the lab that one morning by siphoning out his pain and turbulent thoughts.

 

Danny's mostly peaceful morning is interrupted when Bloo unexpectedly fades away, taking their cold miracle hands with them. The reason for their abrupt exit comes seconds later when Jazz blows into his room, something clutched in her hand and a magnificently peeved expression on her pinched face.

 

"What is this?" Jazz demands, holding out a tablet. Danny sits up in bed, ignoring how his sister jabs the electronic item in his face a few times impatiently.

 

"Well, it appears to be a tablet, but I don't know when we got one of those, so…" Danny rubs his hair tiredly, taking the tablet with one hand and squinting to see the contents of the bright screen. It seems to be some sort of paused video on the local news site. Which is distressing in ways his currently cloudy mind can not yet fully comprehend.

 

"It's from the library. And I didn't mean _what it is_ , I meant _what's on it!"_ Jazz hisses out, pressing a finger to the touch-screen so that the already fully loaded video plays.

 

Danny braces himself for another game changer, revving up his 'memorized list of excuses' for a round or two.

 

"Hi, I'm Lance Thunder with breaking news here at Amity Park Zoo. What you see behind me is the completely wrecked recently donated Chinese panda exhibit, which police say was destroyed sometime last night, freeing the fuzzy white and black bears to wander the park. After a call from an anonymous benefactor, the police and staff were informed of what appeared to be a supernatural brawl in the middle of the cage. One ghost being the commonly sighted 'Phantom' and another unnamed ghost of large stature were seen duking it out by a few high school volunteers staying overnight in order to observe the pandas in their somewhat natural habitat.

 

"Police say that they have called Amity Park's local 'ghost experts' down to assess the case, and will get back to us with more news once the 'ectoplasmic residue' has been properly examined. Unfortunately, due to the delicate nature of the panda's, no video footage was taken of this late night event. This was Lance Thunder, coming to you live from Amity Park Zoo. Back to you, Carol."

 

The video ends, as does all of Danny's plans to use his pre-memorized 'get out of jail free' cards.

 

"Um, so…" Danny rubs the back of his neck, "I don't really… Uhh…" _Curse my lead tongue making an appearance at the absolute worst time!_

 

"You _are_ hiding something." Jazz states, narrowing her eyes and snatching the tablet back. "What went on down there? Did you somehow think that you could win in a ghost fight or something? _Again?"_

 

"Uhh…" The half-ghost hunches his shoulders up and lets his eyes wander away from his sister's searching face. "I… we didn't know? That there would be a ghost fight? So it's not our fault?" He pauses. "Also, I am _not_ 'hiding something.' Stop stalking me!"

 

"A-huh, really?" Jazz stands up straight and crosses her arms. "So why is your binder gone already? Did you just _accidentally_ take it off and toss it away in fear?"

 

"Well – " He's about to explain that he was bowled over by one of the ghosts, his shirt ripped, and he had to discard the ruined binder (all false), when his sister makes a sucking air noise like a surfacing whale.

 

"Wait a second… Were you and your two friends doing…" She leans forward with a harrowing expression, _"unsavory things_ to each other?"

 

_What._

 

"What." _What!? What does that even mean!?_

 

"Oh, my god." His older sister stands up straight, shocked face pointing towards the ceiling as she flaps her hands around in the air. _"No wonder_ you're wearing Sam's hoodie! Those two are _bodice rippers!"_

 

"Holy – No, Jazz, just… no," Danny rubs his face with one hand, wincing slightly at the pain from his nose where he tugs on the skin. "We weren't doing something like _that – "_

 

"What was it? Kissing? Heavy petting?" The older sister lets out a tiny, strained shriek, "Oh, who am I kidding; your shirt was off! _Of course_ there was heavy petting!"

 

" _Noooooooooo…"_ Danny wails, throwing his head back to _thunk_ against the headboard. "Jazz, _pleeeassseee stoooopp…"_

 

"I know that Tucker is a boy, so I guess I have to castrate him now," Jazz mumbles, pacing around the room as well as she can with all of the messes on the floor, "But is Sam even a girl? Do I have to castrate _both_ of his friends?"

 

"Jazz!" Danny yells, getting up from the bed and regretting that motion spectacularly when his stomach reminds him of the humiliating _smackdown_ that happened to him last night. "No one is castrating anyone! …and you shouldn't assume someone's genitals just from going by their gender!"

 

Interrupting his sister's meltdown and Danny's groaning explanations of 'the situation at hand is the _exact opposite_ of what you think it is!' is the jokingly set ringtone of the Kim Possible theme song.

 

Jazz halts, shakes her head as if to right herself, and picks up her cellphone with a disgusted look at the caller I.D. "What could _you_ possibly want – "

 

Instead of getting right into whatever tirade she had planned, Jazz pauses with pursed lips. Then her eyebrows shoot to her forehead, one arm reaching out to drag the standing curled-up Danny closer for a side-hug. It confuses the ghost-boy greatly, but he stays silent as his sister listens in for a few long minutes to whoever is speaking on the other side.

 

Finally, she hands her plain black phone down to her sibling. "If you ever toss your phone out the window in a dramatic fit again, I'm telling mom and dad," is all she says, patting him on the head and flitting out of the room.

 

Danny reels, pressing the phone cautiously to his cheek with an "Um, hello?"

 

" _Ahgi;_ I have some concerns to voice over your current mental state and your ability to care for your electronics."

 

"Oh, Li," _this_ sure wasn't going to be too fun, "How did you know that I tossed my phone out the – _Oh."_

 

_Way to go, Fenton – have a meltdown all over someone then forget about it!_

 

"I'm not a big fan of calling you at 7 a.m, hearing you cry about possible suicidal tendencies, and then abruptly throwing your phone away without hanging up. The only reason that I was pretty sure you'd tossed it out the window was because after a few minutes of silence, a crow must have captured it. Not a fun thing to listen to when you think your best friend may or may not be harming themselves…"

 

"Oh, Li, I'm so sorry." Danny sighs, pressing a hand to his forehead and staring at the ceiling. "I just… I was in a really bad place right then. I didn't even know that it was _you_ I was so out of it."

 

A twin sigh answers him, "I understand, little-man. You get like that sometimes. I guess I _kind of_ jumped the gun with telling your sister… But, hey," Li makes an appropriate hum of slight amusement, "At least I waited a little bit, right? My mom wouldn't let me run out of the house, half-cocked, without explaining why I was in such a hurry, so I guess there's that…"

 

Danny walks over to his window, pulls aside the curtain, and opens it, sticking his head out and leaning over his desk to look down into the yard. Sure enough, his cellphone was nowhere to be seen, broken or otherwise.

 

"Whoops," Danny says unconcernedly, "Guess I have to tell my parents just what happened to my cellphone."

 

A laugh. "You could say that a crow carried it away when you set it down on a park table. That happens all the time nowadays. Maybe crows flock where ghosts are?"

 

Danny chuckles, disbelieving of the 'spooky' irony, then hisses in pain when his stomach throbs.

 

"Danny?" Li questions with worry. "You didn't go and try to fight another ghost, did you?"

 

"Why does everyone always assume it was a ghost?" Danny gripes, but has to concede. He _does_ use the 'it was a ghost' excuse frequently enough to be a known trait about him. "And, yes – it was a ghost. Did you see the news this morning? About the zoo?"

 

Li gasps in either outrage or surprise. "That was _you?_ Oh my god, Danny, _really?_ _I was joking!_ Please stop fighting ghosts, _ahgi,_ you're going to give me ulcers."

 

Danny winces at the reprimand, "I know… But I didn't _mean_ to get knocked around by a ghost! It just kinda… happened."

 

 _Really, it was a surprise for everyone._ The young half-ghost rolls his mental eyes sarcastically, imagining all of the ways a cartoonish Phantom would beat up a non-threatening, non-nightmarish version of Skulker the next time they meet. Because that would _totally_ happen.

 

"Oh!" Danny shouts with a little bit of excitement, "Get this. Don't tell my sister, but the ghost stole my freaking binder! Can you believe it? My shirt got ripped, and it just… it flew off with my binder in its hand! I was so pissed off…"

 

"What? Holy – how did you even get close enough for that to happen?" Li asks incredulously, "Was it Phantom or the other ghost?"

 

"It was Sk – Er, the other ghost. Phantom came in later and beat it up, though." If _that_ wasn't a blatant lie, then Tucker was straight. Phantom got beat up, down, and all around by the hunter ghost. The only reason Skulker was 'beat' at all was because of Sam and Tucker being there to help Danny in between the blood-ectoplasm-bath.

 

"Oh. Well, I guess that rules out 'kindly asking for your binder back' then, huh?"

 

"Yea, no kidding," Danny groans with a smile, glad that Li was one of the people who generally have a positive opinion on his secret 'alter-ego', leaning on his desk and enjoying the soft spring breeze coming through his window. "I better go. Jazz probably has quite a few 'descriptive words' to have with me about, well, _everything."_

 

The two friends say their goodbyes and Danny hangs up, eyes taking a cursory glance around his messy room for Bloo (and not finding them) before he sluggishly makes his way downstairs.

 

There's no one in the house but him and Jazz (and maybe whatever non-malicious ghost decides to hang around today besides Bloo) when Danny joins her in the kitchen. He supposes that his parents are at the zoo, taking 'ecto-samples' for further study.

 

The half-ghost recalls the way he stupidly spit half-blood-half-ectoplasm all over the ground, and gulps nervously. He desperately hopes that his 'ectoplasmic residue' was just that – ectoplasm. His own blood being detected on the ground would be nothing short of a nightmare.

 

"Want something to eat?" A deceptively calm Jazz asks as she helps herself to some leftover flapjacks, carefully picking around anything green and glowing like an average person would avoid their least favorite part of a normal meal.

 

Danny shifts a little, feeling the way his stomach moves oddly (his sides shiver in equal parts disgust and intrigue, the words _Acid Soup_ sitting heavily in his head) and declines the offer with an awkward "Uh… nah. Not hungry right now."

 

"Suit yourself, but make sure you drink some water. You need it to stay hydrated," Jazz informs him as he walks closer to the fridge, peering inside and seeing quite a few ecto-samples dotted about. They were all glowing dimly and sealed in antighost-serum coated glass containers so that they wouldn't absorb the energy of their environment and mutate (become "alive.")

 

Something in Danny's chest wriggles around, causing him to take a surreptitious glance over his shoulder. His sister was leaving the kitchen, food in hand, most likely to either study in front of the TV or to retreat to her room with an assignment. With the way she walks up the stairs seconds later, he's betting it's the latter.

 

Hesitantly, as if someone would pop out and yell at him at any second, Danny grips the smallest ecto-sample with one hand, shutting the fridge in the process. He unscrews the lid and sets it down onto the counter, watching the ectoplasmic heap softly jerk and twist around with energy pulses.

 

Stupidly, but admittedly with justified curiosity, Danny sticks his tongue into the short glass, letting the tip breach the gelatin-like surface of the ecto-sample as he scoops up a portion into his mouth.

 

It was like one of those disgusting energy drinks, where they taste like hundreds of syrupy, sour cough drops all melted down and concentrated into one small serving. Jolts of near-electricity shoot up and down the young teen, who is now full of regret… and surprise.

 

It felt like being energized. Like waking up to a bucket of cold water being thrown on your face. Similar to the way Bloo's cold appendages seemingly did away with his aches and pains, so did this small taste of ectoplasm. His nose no longer throbbed lightly with every mouth movement, his leg felt like a leg again, and his stomach _almost_ wasn't giving him mental contractions with how _messed up_ it was.

 

 _I think I just discovered something amazing,_ Danny realizes with wide eyes staring out the kitchen window, glass still gripped in his hand.

 

Hurrying with climbing excitement, the half-ghost sets the glass of glowing green mush next to its lid, opening the fridge once more to root around. He makes a tiny noise of happiness once he spots just what he was hoping for; a half-eaten glowing green sandwich, abandoned to the mercy of the supernatural fridge once it started showing signs of contamination.

 

He grabs it, taking one big bite out of the end. It feels like a stale Ruben, but that doesn't seem to matter to the boy, as his eyes light up in wonder.

 

It tasted magical. It _felt_ magical. He could practically see his metaphorical 'Health Points' climb up in increasing number.

 

Cheerily whistling, Danny swipes a few more small ecto-samples, getting out a plastic water bottle from one of the tall cabinets. It wasn't too big, maybe 300 mL, so he wasn't worried about having some kind of 'overdose in ectoplasm' with what he was about to do.

 

 _I'll experiment with flavor later, if there even is such a thing in this situation,_ Danny decides as he fills half of the bottle with tap water, and then dumps approximately half ecto-sample in as well. He messily screws the lid shut, shaking the bottle thoroughly until the water was mostly mixed with the green.

 

The ghost-boy takes an experimental swig of his new concoction. It tastes like nothing he's ever experienced before, but was still within the expected weirdness range of 'consuming diluted ectoplasm.'

 

 _I've gotta tell Sam and Tuk!_ But Danny has to slow his roll when he remembers that his phone was currently being picked apart by a crow somewhere halfway across Amity Park.

 

_Then again, Jazz forgot to take back her phone… She's bound to have Sam and Tucker's numbers on here. "For Danny-related emergencies" and all._

 

With a bit of deviousness, he slides the still-borrowed device out of his pocket and starts a new group chat. He doesn't bother to name or save it, as he plans on never letting his sister know via leftover texts that he was in the kitchen guzzling _ectoplasm_ of all things.

 

_Sent at 10:46 a.m_

_JAZ: this is danny_

_JAZ: i tossed my phone out my window in a 'dramatic fit' as jazz put it_

_JAZ: but anyway_

_SAM: omg wat_

_TUK: What_

_JAZ: ANYWAY i just found out that if i eat ectoplasm i can heal my injuries faster_

_JAZ: go figure_

_TUK: Are you serious right now?_

_JAZ: i mean im assuming thats why i feel all tingly and good_

_SAM: don't coming crying to us if you start throwing up everywhere, ghost-boy_

_JAZ: shut ur fuk_

 

Danny pauses his miniature squabble with his friends when his pricked ears hear Jazz leave her room and head towards the stairs. He quickly sweeps all of the _evidence_ from his _weird experimentation_ into either the trash or back to the fridge, sending one last text as he goes.

 

_JAZ: btw jazz thinks were all sleeping together lol bye_

_TUK: HOLY WHAT_

_SAM: damn straight_

_Sent at 10:51 a.m_

 

Hurriedly, Danny deletes the chat log history before stuffing his newly filled water bottle into Sam's black hoodie pocket, turning around to address his older sister by holding out the phone in one hand.

 

"Here. I forgot I still had this," Danny offers, walking past his sister like nothing was wrong or weird, _no I totally don't have a bottle of 'gin' in my pocket, what are you saying…_

 

"Uhm, er…" Jazz stutters out, looking bewildered at her brother's behavior, "Weren't you injured a few minutes ago?"

 

"Nope." Is all Danny says to that, hopping upstairs on two healthy legs and not clutching at his stomach at all, "What made you think that? I just got knocked around a little and lost my shirt; no biggie."

 

'No biggie' Jazz mouths incredulously, squinting at her brother hopping up the stairs like he was a new species of spider that crawled into her bedroom when she wasn't looking.

 

Something inside of her head is being tossed into a giant bonfire of inaccuracies. Another 'Danny' notebook to be purged and redone.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Someone's going to catch you, and no one will be able to laugh when it happens, because that is too fucking _weird_ and _concerning."_ Sam chews on their mouth, brows pulled down as they stand over the sitting Danny. He is currently taking periodic drinks from his rubber 'water' bottle, feigning indifference to cover his jittery nerves.

 

"I'll laugh," Tucker offers absentmindedly, fiddling around with the touchscreen on his new PDA.

 

"No, you won't – you'll be too busy shipping him to Canada so that he doesn't get mobbed or put in _ghost jail_ by his parents," the purple Goth flicks her technopath friend on his ear, earning a hiss in response. "Like the _mom friend."_

 

"I am _not_ the mom friend," the obvious 'mom friend' declares, one finger stuck in the air and waiting to be used as a non-verbal defense item.

 

Danny, with his mouth still attached to his ambrosia, and Sam, still using her height to lean over everyone else, share a droll look.

 

"Totally the mom friend," the two pale kids say simultaneously.

 

Tucker looks offended, scrambling for a justification for why he, the absolute mom-est mom friend, was not the mom friend. "Yea, well… Well! I didn't carry Danny on my back! So there! Not the mom friend!"

 

"That's because you can't even lift me, bro," Danny states, silently fighting Sam's grip on his questionably filled bottle. She was losing, obviously, because no one was as buff as a half-dead, half-starved teenager drinking otherworldly goo.

 

Tucker sputters as Sam ceases trying to wrestle the ectoplasm bottle away in favor of pushing up their sheer sleeves and flexing mockingly. Ironically, overtop their black long sleeve is a loose tank that says, in bold purple letters: SUNS OUT GUNS OUT.

 

"I – " Tucker makes a frustrated noise, grumbling 'you can't lift _me_ though.'

 

That statement shines like a beacon of _challenge._ Danny guesses his black friend forgot that the tiny latino friend had both super hearing _and_ super strength. He makes sure Tuk completely and intimately understands this when he lifts the boy up with one arm like a serving platter.

 

Tucker shrieks slightly in both outrage and surprise, so Danny puts him back down with a sputtering laugh. Sam is also laughing boisterously, causing the practicing football team at the bottom of the metal bleachers to look up in either question or irritation.

 

"Fenton!" Dash Baxter yells. Danny doesn't bother trying to stop laughing, only giving a limp wave to the sweaty loud jock. "Why are you and your weird friends even here!?"

 

"To watch you, of course!" Danny calls back with much more geniality in his voice than the blond _jerk_ down below could ever accomplish. It was sarcastic, but whatever. He felt like he was emulating Li when he did it.

 

Dash rolls his eyes, wiping a hand across his sweaty forehead and futilely ignoring how Kwan waves up at the three freshmen. None of the football players were in full gear, as it was one of the first warm days of the year, and they weren't really practicing so much as goofing off.

 

However, sitting here 'watching' the football team practice left one _annoying_ problem for the ghost-boy to face.

 

That problem was Wes Weston existing.

 

Danny could feel the slim red-head's gaze on him every now and then. He curses his enhanced senses in this situation; he's never _felt_ a gaze on him before, not to such a degree. But here he was, rage pulsating in his core every few sneaky passes the teen's eyes make at him from afar.

 

"Sam, if you lift me, I will scream. And push you over when you least expect it."

 

"You couldn't even push me over if I was standing on one leg, Tuk-Nut."

 

In fact, Wes was looking over right now. Probably under the guise of staring at the 'weird friends' for as long as possible. So that he could be as _unnerving_ as possible.

 

Danny, once again, wishes that he could bare his little fangs in a snarl. He resists. Barely.

 

"I am _not_ going to your super rich family's gym. No. Stop it. I'd be eaten alive for dinner on five-thousand dollar plates."

 

"Then how about we go to a regular gym? I'll even pay for your membership. Because you're _such a big baby."_

 

Wes narrows his brown eyes in consternation. Danny gives in and flips him off.

 

"You are _not_ paying for my gym membership!"

 

"So you _are_ going to the gym, then, yes?"

 

"Fucking… _Sam."_

 

" _Tucker."_

 

The red-head pales, then whirls away to continue the mock-game below. Danny smirks in victory.

 

"What's gotten into you? Weren't your eyes just green?" Tucker questions the sleazy-looking boy to his left. Sam leans over Danny and makes faces at Tucker; because she's tall and she can do that without straining.

 

"Hm? Oh." Danny offhandedly answers his friends with a "Remember when I slam-dunked Wes Weston's nasty ass into the dumpsters behind the school?"

 

A pause. Incredulity breeds in the air seconds later.

 

"Um – _No_ – When the hell!?"

 

"Fuckin' _sweeeeet,_ man!" Sam gives Danny a high-five. The slap resounds quite loudly, and Sam pulls their hand away with a slightly pained expression. Danny guiltily gives them an apologetic smile.

 

"No! _Not_ sweet!" Tucker strains, trying to keep his voice down, his eyes darting about as if a teacher would accost them immediately with the single announcement. "When did that happen? _Why_ did that happen?"

 

Danny only gets out a mysterious finger waggle in his technopath friend's face before he's dropping his ecto-water bottle in dread at a familiar sensation. A cloud of air forces itself out of his breathless nose.

 

"Shit!" Danny curses brutally as screams erupt from below. Kids scatter in the wake of eerie green light, echoing laughter, and the sound of powerful rockets flying overhead.

 

Skulker had arrived. Here. At Casper High School. As if they could somehow track their 'prey.' Which just so happens to be Danny.

 

The half-ghost's heart beats erratically as he gets twin nods from his hastily preparing friends, phasing through the bleachers until he touches down on the grass below in a crouch.

 

He has to go invisible and quiet his squeak of surprise, however, when his eyes meet the dangerously close back of Wes. The boy was apparently hiding under the bleachers, alone, fearfully peeking out and perhaps regretting separating from his much smarter teammates, who had fled towards the school building.

 

 _Well, that's too bad,_ Danny thinks cattily, _because I've gotta transform and you can't be here when I do!_

 

Hands flapping a bit in indecision, he finally settles on shoving Wes forward while turning the other boy intangible, forcing the human presence out and into the open of the football field with a startled scream to join his equally loud peers.

 

Much to the ghost-boy's confusion, his transformation comes with barely a brush of consent against his cold core in a gasping burst of light. He's practically falling onto his ass with the force of energy output, but quickly picks himself back up with released jitteriness. He hopes that that was the only side-effect of consuming too much ectoplasm, if it was a side-effect of that at all.

 

He's barely made it up and through the solidness of the bleachers when he's already dodging glowing silver rockets that leave green gas behind in acrid trails. His heart – _his fucking heart which shouldn't exist right now!_ Is beating much faster than he expected it to in this form.

 

Danny has no time to dwell on his weird 'half ghost biology', however, as he's got a good bird's eye view of a zooming Skulker coming straight for him. If he were more confident in his abilities, he would lead the hunter ghost on a chase away from the school –

 

The ghost-boy dodges another array of rockets and bullets, keen on such a task as his parents used Phantom as target practice often enough –

 

However, he's pretty sure he's going to need Sam and Tucker's help again. His eyes roam the brown and green grass below for the two, barely able to take his eyes off of the incoming projectiles for more than a second.

 

His luck runs out before he can locate them. A bruising, blinding, _loud_ force propels him down from his lofty perch and into the harsh solidness of the ground. It's only a few seconds of ringing ears and a burning side before he's being manhandled by cruel, cold hands that make appearances in all of his anxiety-filled daydreams.

 

"That trick you played last time," a familiar voice from the teen's nightmares croons next to his nearly-deaf ear, "was adorable, honestly. Too bad it didn't work for long."

 

Danny twists in the grip the cyborg ghost has on his entire torso - _god, could this guy get any bigger?_ \- getting a few good kicks in punctuated by the metal _conk_ s and grunts the other makes.

 

"Let… me… _go!"_ The captured half-ghost strains, but only earns a mechanical laugh in return. It sends chills down his spine, which is now creaking with the effort of preventing him from being bent in half by the crushing force the predator ghost is confining him with.

 

Danny screams out as the pressure across his back and stomach intensifies beyond what his body can take. The half of his mind that isn't _freaking the fuck_ _out_ distantly registers how his spine doesn't necessarily snap, but instead seems to bend even further and shift to fit the mold of the metal pulverizing his body.

 

The half-ghost gains enough of his sanity back through the pain to do a hasty intangibility move. Skulker doesn't seem too surprised, as they only load up some sort of electrical rod from their left arm, mechanical sight locked on to their moving prey.

 

Danny takes the time to float away, parts of his body either sliding off in an ectoplasmic mess or dissolving into green mist. Skulker growls something about 'tricky _halfas'_ and swings the rod closer and closer to what is left of the half-ghost's 'physical body.'

 

He can't tell what's the weirdest about this current situation; how he can't feel his entire lower body and some reaching parts of his back and chest, or the fact that Skulker was flinging their arm around trying to hit him and obviously becoming more and more frustrated the further this deadly dance went.

 

It was hilarious in a situationally terrifying way.

 

"Get over here!" Skulker rages, jabbing the electro-rod forward once more, only to have it doused in mucky ectoplasm dripping from the _halfa's_ 'body', "Why are you always so slippery!?"

 

Danny can't help it – he laughs. Skulker roars. The teen laughs some more because he's _insane_ and _dissociating_ and he really honestly _cannot help it_ right now. Half of him is _literally_ _gone_ for crying out loud!

 

"Maybe it's because I'm made of goo," Danny offers, swinging a solidified fist abruptly down at the cyborg ghost's head. It connects, causing a hollow _clang_ to ring through the air. Those vibrations go straight to the ghost-boy's core, giving him renewed strength and confidence.

 

Skulker reels back with a growl, though their eyes are practically glitching in and out with the hit they just took in an effort to stay standing.

 

Danny uses the temporary reprieve from a near constant attack to reform himself – pain and all. He groans long and loud when his lower half shimmers back into existence, bringing his injuries into play once more. Without control, he falls from his floating height.

 

" _Halfas,"_ Skulker scoffs unexpectedly, standing tall and imposing in front of the stunned ghost teen collapsed on the ground, "always have to go and flaunt their physical manifestations like its _nothing."_

 

"What are you blabbing on about, tin-head?" Danny caustically questions despite being the most vulnerable one at the moment. His emergency sarcastic defense system has yet to fail him. "Or is a hunk of junk like you had enough?"

 

" _Whelp."_ Skulker growls as the flames on their head shoot higher in visible agitation, their blocky teeth hissing out a cloud of steamy air. "You've only gotten a single hit in."

 

"It was a damn good one, though." Danny compliments this statement with a shit-eating grin. He's been doing more and more of those lately. It feels great.

 

The cyborg ghost only exemplifies how that one hit was a strong one when they have to slightly screw their lopsided head back into a front-facing direction. "I doubt there will be many more. Prepare yourself."

 

 _Uh-oh,_ Danny's mind offers unhelpfully as Skulker thrusts themselves forward. _I could really use some help right about now!_

 

Instead of a rescue team in the form of Sam leaping into action or Tucker sneaking around behind-the-scenes, the two battling ghosts get a small crowd of really, really stupid students who are too jaded and depressed to care about their safety.

 

Because, y'know – it's high school.

 

"Get it, Phantom!" A random kid shouts, throwing their arms into the air. This causes a wave of movement and encouragement to go through the gathering.

 

"Go, Phantom!"

 

"Ghost-boy!"

 

" _Woo-hoo!"_

 

"Placing bets over here!"

 

"Free period courtesy of ghost fight! Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"

 

"Placing bets right here folks!"

 

"Ten on the cyborg!"

 

"Jona, you ass, don't bet on the enemy!"

 

"Why not? It's fucking huge!"

 

" _Phantom!"_

 

"Placing bets! Ten on the cyborg and fifty on Phantom!"

 

Danny grunts in exertion as he uses the momentum of kicking off of the enraged ghost's chest to dodge another swipe. That electro-rod did not look like a fun thing to get hit with, and he's pretty sure he can't phase through it because Skulker specifically pulled it out when he started adding intangibility to the fray.

 

"Where's my fucking binder!" Danny angrily shouts into the ectoplasmic horror's face before giving them an audibly painful kick to the side of the head. He was starting to see the appeal of using both his fists and his feet as weapons.

 

Skulker growls, doing something weird with their torso that allows them to do a complete 360 degree waist twist and smack Danny down and to the side with one hulking arm, "That's none of your concern now!"

 

"Like hell it isn't!" The half-ghost has to cease his attempted interrogation when he is forced to dodge a myriad of small rockets. His body twists and pulls into odd directions, making him feel like a really pissed off raw pretzel. He powers through the brain weirdness of fighting as a barely-physical being made of cross-dimensional- _death-goo_ and the occasional half-functioning human organ.

 

Skulker suddenly roars, "This is taking too long!" Before cocking some sort of arm gun and shooting it at the half-ghost. "Prey shouldn't be this hard to capture; you're just a filthy hybrid child!"

 

Danny yelps in surprise as a net connected to a glowing blue rope encases him, causing him to drop from his flight onto the ground once more. The way the brightly lit net wiring is humming with energy is much too close for comfort, reminding the half-ghost of being inside of the portal just before it turned on for the first time…

 

A scream catches in his throat as his world erupts into agony and blindness. Courses of shocking electricity run through him, wiping every thought from his mind temporarily. Once again, if Danny had a fully working bladder right now, it would be emptied between muscle spasms.

 

As quick as it happened, it's already over, leaving a steaming mass of gasping ghost-boy jerking uncontrollably inside of the tangled net, flummoxed and unmoving with literal shock.

 

His ringing ears hear the way Skulker powers up their rockets, and he panics inside. Was the cyborg going to drag him through the air in a net like someone in an ancient-era movie would drag a dead body behind a horse? Was he going to be some sort of gruesome battle prize?

 

Was he going to be taken to the ghost zone…?

 

Instead of that dramatic and harrowing prediction occurring, Danny is surprised to see the blue power of the net surrounding him die down. He looks through the holes curiously. The hunter ghost wouldn't just let their 'prey' go, would they?

 

Skulker curses loudly and in apparent confusion as they involuntarily blast off and into the air, something sparking and zapping on their back. Danny dimly recalls how Tucker's last PDA had been strapped in there during the 'fight' two days ago at the Saturday zoo sleepover that turned into a one-ghost-massacre.

 

The half-ghost smiles brokenly. _So Tucker managed to pull through after all._ He phases through the net without waiting any longer, letting the now useless contraption collapse without his form inside of it.

 

He's greeted with eagerly instated pain and eerie silence. He looks over almost drunkenly at the nervous crowd still gathered, wondering where the enthusiastic cheering had gone. He's _pretty sure_ no one was seriously injured or caught in the crossfire.

 

They were all staring at him, horrified. Some phones were pulled out but seemingly no longer being paid attention to, held up by frozen limbs. There are no more bets being placed, and no one is calling out in loss or win. They were just… gawking.

 

Danny belatedly realizes that he looks like an utter _disaster._ Parts of him are sliding off in trails of glowing ectoplasm, hiding most of the blood mixing in and dissolving it along with the previously heartily growing grass. He feels what might be bruises (or they might be _giant gaping holes of gore and horror -_ he just can't tell right now) on his face from the swinging fists Skulker proved to wield just as professionally as their myriad of other weaponry.

 

He jerkily runs a hand across his face to wipe away the ecto-blood coming from his nose, knowing now that the most likely place for noticeable trails of red liquid to come out of was his face.

 

"What?" Danny calls, cocking his head to the side and letting the ectoplasm run out of his ear in a numb dribble, "never seen a real ghost fight before?"

 

No one answers. Predictable, but understandable. He's never seen a 'real' ghost fight either if the past few days were anything to go by. Losing twice was going to stain his 'immaculate' record of screaming, crying, and panicking…

 

Shrugging past the pain, the half-ghost floats up slowly, going invisible as he does so in order to get out of the public eye as quickly as possible. He wanders through the air, scoping out the area for his two wayward friends.

 

_Tucker couldn't have been too far away, or else he wouldn't have been able to control his second PDA, so where…?_

 

Danny spots two figures huddled under the bleachers, right below where the three were sitting peacefully not but a while ago. He drops down through the solid object and collapses on the ground, letting his transformation go with a flash of light and a groaning noise. He knows that no one but his two friends are here, as everyone else cleared out of this area once it became a rocket target zone.

 

"Danny!" Twin voices whisper-yell in concern. He feels the presence of his friends gather around his body, making no move to try and get up. Like hell he was doing anything other than bleeding out for at least an hour. Fuck classes; he wanted a vacation starting immediately.

 

"Mmph," Danny grunts, spread face-down on the grass. "That was awful. Did anyone else think that was awful? I feel awful, so it must've been…"

 

"Oh my god," Tucker gasps out, making noises like he was currently pulling out one of his well-stocked first aid kits. "You look like you were punched in the face by a rocket."

 

"That's because I was." Danny quirks an eyebrow, using what's left of his energy to flip himself over onto his back. He leans up against one of the metal pillars, every groove drilling into his back like a pike. "Has anyone seen my green goop? I think I'm gonna need it."

 

Sam sighs in disapproval, but a cold rubber object gently taps Danny on the shoulder; his 'water' bottle. "I still think this is a bad idea. You could seriously be messing up your human body with this stuff."

 

"Suck my hypothetical dick, Sam," Danny gurgles eloquently, swigging the diluted ectoplasm like he's a marathon runner drinking ionic water. "And this is totally not the weirdest or most self-destructive thing I've done lately – not even by a longshot."

 

The two human teens make differing sounds of conceding to the point; Danny had eaten ectoplasm for a longer time than he'd even known his friends. It was, quite honestly, not abnormal for the boy to have at least one glowing green food item in a day. Now he's just upping the ante by purposefully eating ectoplasm for the sake of eating ectoplasm.

 

Tucker swipes a wet rag over Danny's face, interrupting his chugging session and eliciting an annoyed whine from the healing ghost-boy.

 

"That thing you did, where you back flipped off of Skulker's chest? That was freaking wicked, dude," Tucker looks down at Danny with wide, excited eyes. "How did you ever figure that out?"

 

Danny scoffs in a choking laugh. "I get creative when I'm angry."

 

"Yea, no kidding." Sam eyes her downed friend with a suspicious look, no doubt remembering their earlier conversation about Wes Weston. She was ecstatic that someone had finally put that loser in his place, but obviously was sketchy about the details and wanting elaboration.

 

Danny decides to not let her get the chance to question him. "I asked Skulker about my binder, but all they said was 'that's none of your concern' or something along those lines." He makes sure to have a mocking voice when quoting the cyborg – didn't want his friends to notice how _absolutely terrified_ he is of the ghost, now did he?

 

"Yea, we kind of noticed that the fight devolved into a screaming match at some point. Whatever happened to 'witty banter'?" The techno-geek asks with quirked lips as he winds a bandage around Danny's bruised wrist despite knowing that the injury was rapidly healing even as they spoke.

 

"Oh," Danny furrows his brows, "Did anyone hear us yelling? It would kind of suck if people started talking more about 'Phantom's binder' instead of 'Phantom's fights', you know?" Going unsaid was the possibility of an identity outing – no one had spoken about how Phantom might not be 'fully ghost', but it was always on the actual half-ghost's mind.

 

"Nah," Sam interrupts, giving Tucker a pointed look. He rolls his eyes and continues his medical ministrations. "Ghost's voices sort of echo and distort the further away we are, so we couldn't really tell what you were yelling until you said something directly to the crowd." They lean back a bit in consideration, biting their lip again. "You kind of freaked them out, I think, when you talked to them about 'a real ghost fight.' You looked like a mess."

 

Danny only chuckles, "Yeah, I know." He notes in the back of his mind that _he's_ never had a problem hearing a ghost when they're far away. It must only be a 'fully alive' thing, then.

 

"Oh, ugh, _no,"_ Sam groans. It sounds like she smacked herself in the face, but Danny is too busy sucking the last of his healing nectar dry to pay attention. "I think someone called your parents. Which is weird, because I'm almost positive that no one ran all the way to the school building. They all congregated to one spot and never left."

 

"I've seen flyers around town with the FentonWorks number on it," Tucker explains, shutting the first-aid-kit and shoving it back into his bag. "I bet a lot of kids from here wrote the number down. No need to run away, get a teacher, then get locked in an overcrowded gym anymore when you could just call for help yourself and stay to watch the fight."

 

"Like I said," Sam throws her hands out in a gesture, "Stupid. People."

 

Sure enough, the sound of the Fenton RV comes closer and closer the longer the three sit and idle there under the bleachers. Danny tongues a bit of sour ectoplasm out of his teeth and spits it out to the side as he stands up, no longer groaning and paralyzed with a hurting body.

 

"I feel… smoky." Danny notes a bit incredulously, eyes narrowing and blinking rapidly past any lingering pain. The worst was, surprisingly, not his back where he was practically squashed into the size of a tuna can, but his skin. It feels like someone had dunked him in a bath of dry pepper and scrubbed him all over with a wire bristle.

 

"You _smell_ smoky," Tucker wrinkles his nose. "So… how are we gonna get back into the building and pretend we _totally_ weren't involved here?"

 

"I can… probably do it?" The half-ghost coughs out, which doesn't help his case at all. "Just give me a second and I'll see."

 

"Oh, shit, hold on, I'll get your bag…" Tucker stands, leaps a few times, and down careens a purple bag right onto Danny's head. Or, _through_ Danny's head, as the ghost-boy can apparently go intangible as of right now.

 

"Awesome. Now I'm in extra pain." Is all he warns them with, "Grab on losers; we're sneaking in through the pipes."

 

"Um, what – " Tucker grabs onto everyone's stuff and then to the prepped half-ghost. Sam is grabbed by Danny, which doesn't improve her mood any.

 

"Danny, wait, I don't think we can – "

 

The half-ghost huffs out a breath as he jerks his two friends through the ground. Instant blackness encompasses them, Danny flying as quickly as he can in the general direction of the school. Once he can hear a cacophony of voices from above, he periodically pops his (invisible) head up to gauge their location.

 

"Alright," Danny decides in the middle of an empty hallway, "All clear – Guys? Are you okay?"

 

Sam and Tucker collapse onto the ground, choking and gasping for air as their stuff spills out, forgotten, around them. The only standing one stares down, dancing on his feet with confused concern.

 

"Danny!" Sam spits out, "There's no air down there!"

 

"Oh." Is all the half-ghost can say. _He's_ never noticed that there was no air below the surface. "Sorry…"

 

"N-next time…" Tucker chokes out, "Let's fly there, okay? No more mole adventures… I don't think my lungs could take it."

 

"Um… Yea, sure thing, Tuk." Danny sniffs as he awkwardly rubs the back of his head. Parts of his skin twinge, but it isn't as bad as… well, the actual fight or anything. And it certainly isn't as terrible as the first throw-down he'd had with Skulker. That would probably haunt him forever as both a paradigm shift and his most embarrassing moment as a 'hero.'

 

 _I mean, hopefully. There can't be much worse than Skulker out there, right?_ Danny tries to reason with himself.

 

As if the world was just waiting to prove him wrong, pricklings of bad luck erupt on the back of his neck. He rubs it harshly, biting back the curse he wants to let fly at the painful motion. Tingles run up and down his spine like unruly children left up to their own mischief.

 

He doesn't like this new sensation - not one bit. It reminds him too much of how it felt when those two ghosts on the motorcycle came out of the portal, and a black shadow swallowed the house…

 

Sam has recovered and is currently pulling out a big shirt from her beaten up bag, nudging her two friends in the direction of the nearest bathroom. "Come on. I don't have much in way of pants, unless you want to wear a skirt – "

 

Danny makes a noise like an attacking animal.

 

" – yea, I didn't think so. So you're just going to partially smell like burning death for the rest of today. Cool? Cool. Mosey forth."

 

Danny and Tucker dutifully trot to the bathroom, the ghost-boy trying hard to not let the sensation of _wrongness_ bother him. If only it didn't feel like such a bad idea to shove this off, then maybe he could relax…

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

When Danny gets home, once again giving his older sister a self-induced heart attack by wearing Sam's clothes, it's to a small box on his bed.

 

He drops his bag carelessly in the doorway and creeps forward. Jazz wouldn't have bought a new binder so soon, right? He was pretty sure that she was still at least somewhat peeved that he'd lost the previous 'nude' one almost immediately after getting it.

 

Instead, there's a note from his parents on the top. It's his new phone! He was initially surprised at how easily his mom and dad had accepted Li's borrowed story about 'a crow took it', but then they told him that they had been getting false calls from people thinking ghosts had stolen their stuff, but in reality it was the increasing crow population to blame.

 

The box is already open, so Danny easily slides the phone and charger out. It's on, which is weird, because he's pretty sure his parents haven't been home in a while today, and would be out for a few hours longer. Why would they drain the battery like this? It wasn't exactly normal for them to be so careless with electronics, being 'famous' inventors themselves…

 

He is greeted with a peppy uplifting quote as his lock screen. He doesn't even stop to read it, not in the mood for a generalized 'self-care' message that would only make him feel worse, and instead swipes to the home screen.

 

Danny freezes, staring as if caught in a trance.

 

The phone's wallpaper is of him and Jazz at a water park. They're sitting across a wooden picnic table in the middle of an open-concept burger and fries joint, sipping on bright blue and red slushees. They're tanned and grinning, hair all dark, wet, and stringy. He can see his father's meaty arm off to the side, no doubt accidentally caught in the shot by their mother.

 

The only problem is that this photo was taken when he was nine and Jazz was on the cusp of thirteen and fourteen. It means that he can't seem to peel his eyes away from the painfulness of a child's pink, frilly swimsuit and his long, curly hair. His sun flowery, 'girly' flip flops even somehow made their way into the frame. Mocking him. Reminding him.

 

The trans-boy gazes at his own nine-year-old body in climbing disgust. Even Jazz's torso is not spared from his laser eyes. She had worn her first ever bikini that day, almost as if displaying her growing chest proudly. Danny can remember how he wasn't jealous of her then or ever, not even when their mother mentioned how Jazz was filling out, and oh, of course you'll grow up to be a beautiful 'woman' too, _Danielle…_

 

"Smile," Danny tells the hovering, half-formed Bloo as he takes a quick photo of the specter, hastily setting it as his wallpaper and then deleting the previous photo from the phone's database altogether, wiping the happy quote from the lock screen while he's at it.

 

His older sister's intentions were kind when she decided to modify Danny's new phone, but the result leaves him feeling awful. Like his skin didn't fit again, especially since he still itches from his burnt injuries today. It didn't help much that his 'take binder off before fight, put binder back on after fight' plan hadn't worked out so well. There just wasn't any time to phase in or out of clothes when a ghost was in the near vicinity.

 

 _Speaking of…_ "What's up with you?" Danny calls to the nearly translucent Bloo loitering in the other half of the room. Ever since the incident in the lab, the ghost had either been invisible when around Danny or only half-formed. It sort of made the tired teen miss the nurse's chilly lap – he could really use a nap while sprawled all over Bloo right now.

 

A whispering sliver of wind is all he receives in response. Bloo disappears from sight, popping up again within a few seconds next to Danny on the bed. Two milky white eyes stare down at him imploringly.

 

"If you're sorry about what you did to me in the lab, then I forgive you," Danny says with only a speck of desperation and loneliness in his voice. "I… wasn't ready to go in the ghost zone. I'm kind of glad that you stopped me, actually… Even if you did it in a weird, unexplained, _terrifying_ way…"

 

Like a breath of fresh air, Bloo slowly materializes a bit more. Their shoulders mold into view, as does their capped egg head and lanky arms. Their spectral tail is still hidden, but maybe they were just nervous all over again. Reduced back to wandering the house like the other non-malicious ghosts that Danny had seen disappearing around the corners of his room at odd times in the day.

 

The ghost-boy didn't know very much about the ghosts that wandered his house, only that they would rather run away and hide than make any contact with the human inhabitants. They were small creatures as quiet as mice and had only a general tear-drop shape. It reminded him of the ghosts on t.v shows where they would either be a person with a sheet over top or a blob with a ghost tail.

 

They barely triggered his ghost sense, making them seem like incredibly weak ghosts and not worth rounding up to return to the ghost zone. From what Danny observed, it seemed like they at least somewhat enjoyed their stay at the Fenton household, ghost hunters residing inside notwithstanding. So he let them be. For now.

 

Cold hands interrupt Danny's train of thought by massaging his body into a boneless mess. He kicks the box off of his bed and lets his new phone sit somewhere on the covers near his feet, forgotten. He did say that he wanted a nap, after all. He would just have to go without Bloo's lap as a pillow for a while.

 

He only gets up, hours later into the evening, when he feels the familiar tugging dryness between his legs, alluding to either spotting or his elusive period finally showing its red face. Bloo hovers over his shoulder the whole time, not even going invisible or leaving the bathroom when the pants are dropped and a pad is fished out of the cabinet.

 

Danny shrugs the clingy behavior off, and doesn't feel even the least bit uncomfortable with Bloo being there. They were a children's nurse in their lifetime; they'd probably seen plenty of early menstrual cycles and what-not. He was feeling pretty clingy of the wispy ghost himself, but he wouldn't verbally admit such an embarrassing thing.

 

He's feeling pretty okay, all things considered, and he puts his money on Bloo's presence being a benefactor. The nurse ghost has this way about them that just makes some things easier to deal with. They kind of remind Danny of Li in this aspect, only less zany and up to no good.

 

 _Then again, there was that one time that Bloo gave into the seemingly impossible to avoid ghost shenanigans and left me to the care of my sister._ Danny still wasn't over that trickery. If only he knew how to get back at the nurse ghost, then he'd have the last laugh (or 'lool.')

 

The ghost-boy's enhanced hearing picks up the sound of his parents returning home. He was kind of unwilling to do the whole 'thank you for buying me something which makes me feel guilty for existing even though I'm your kid and it's basically your job' but he knew that he would have to, or else his mom might sit him down for a conversation about morals or something.

 

Danny sighs, flicking off the bathroom light as he walks down the stairs to the first floor. Somewhere along the way, Bloo disappears from sight, but he can somehow tell that the white specter is still nearby. It gives him a marginal amount of comfort.

 

"Hey there, kiddo," Jack Fenton calls as his son hops down the stairs. Unlike Maddie, he doesn't yell at the boy for not being careful on the stairs, which Danny is eternally grateful for. "Mind helping us move some of these down to the lab? We need to upgrade the Fenton RV soon."

 

"Sure," Danny answers laconically, getting a good look at the most likely heavy boxes littering the living room. His mother was already coming back up the lab steps empty-handed, reaching her arms out and bending over to get another box.

 

The half-ghost focuses some of his energy on pinpointing exactly where Bloo is as practice. He sticks one hand under a box filled with what feels like ten tons of lead, lifting it up with half a mind and barely a thought to how _unnatural_ his actions must look right now.

 

Jack drops the box he was holding onto his food in surprise. Maddie almost drops hers also, Jazz peering out from around the kitchen archway with a gaping mouth. They all stare at the youngest Fenton.

 

Danny blinks a few times, confused. "What?" He drops the box into both of his arms for more balance, not wanting to make a racket by accidentally fumbling with his cargo.

 

"I – Daniel, have you been… working out?" His mother questions, stepping closer with hidden caution. Danny notices it, though, and he pales with realization and dread at what he'd just done.

 

He'd just flaunted his super strength – _supernatural_ strength – in front of his family. Who didn't know that he was a _half-dead freak._ Who still thought that he was a wimpy fourteen year old mess who couldn't even wash himself most of the time.

 

Quickly, he flails for a plausible lie to use. He sticks with one that he heard earlier in the day from Sam and Tucker's background bickering. "I, uh… Yes! I have! We all have at uh… at Sam's house!" Danny nods his head mock-seriously, pursing his lips and raising an eyebrow, "She's real big on working out. Her family is full of health-nuts, I tell ya.' Sleepovers there aren't very fun, but are truly enlightening. Really got me and Tucker off our butts this semester."

 

"Oh," his mother breathes out, putting a hand over her chest and laughing, "of course! That sounds like a splendid idea. Keep it up, Danny, and you'll be as big and strong as your father one day!"

 

"Aw, Maddy," Jack claps his wife on the back, seemingly satisfied when she doesn't so much as rock forward in weight adjustment, "we both know that you're the strongest one out of the two of us."

 

"Thank you, Jack," Maddie hums, patting the thick orange arm wrapped around her shoulders, "but we're a team, remember? It doesn't really matter who is stronger, just that we can work together and get the job done."

 

"Right you are, Number One!"

 

Danny tries to share a nervous eye-roll with Jazz from across the room as a cover-up for his nearly disastrous situation, but all he receives is a speculative stare. He brushes it off, taking the box downstairs, taking caution so as to not to make it seem like the task was too much of a breeze.

 

Of course, later, his parents will be immensely confused when their son goes from 'lifting this is no big deal' to 'lifting this is a _very_ big deal.' Danny will just cite the fact that Sam's parents had laid off of her friends and no longer forced them to work out every time they came over. In reality, he smartened up, and decided to hide his strength altogether.

 

Jack and Maddie will both be disappointed and offer a 'training schedule', to which their teen son will hastily decline and mysteriously disappear for a few hours that night, coming back later only to limp around the house drinking a shady bottle of something.

 

It will be one of the most normal occurrences in the Fenton household for a while.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danny (and subsequently Vlad) will not have ghost-hunger. He doesn't need to consume ectoplasm (or thrive on the constant ectoplasm of the ghost zone) to keep his form like other ghosts do. Eating ectoplasm is just like an added benefit for him; it heals/gives his ghost-half energy. That's why Skulker is all angry at halfas - it's because they can do shit like that, one toe in the human world and one toe in the ghost world.


	21. dreaming dead (it came true)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Mentions of suicide, mentions of self-harm, transphobia, body and mind horror, gore, violence

 

Sometimes Danny likes to lay awake on weekend mornings and think about everything that's happened to him. He'll sprawl himself on or near Bloo - who has never failed to be there every single day lately - and let his mind wander without restraint. He won't try to silence his intrusive thoughts, his self-destructive tendencies, or his optimistic pipe dreams.

 

That part is tricky - trusting Bloo to make him feel stable enough not to immediately harm himself or the people around him in some way shape or form. Because that's what he's been taught all his life about people like him; 'crazy' people that hurt other people… or something like that. He should feel confident enough to scoff at the notion, but he is the one who fights things for a half-living.

 

This morning, after an awful, awful week full of _Skulker_ (but surprisingly no one else, not even the Box Ghost), Danny curls up on the re-formed Bloo's lap and allows the nurse ghost to run cold hands through his hair and over his sides in ticklish, chilly caresses.

 

And so, over a month after his half-death, Danny 'Phantom' begins to ponder his very existence. It is a harrowing and dangerous experience.

 

 _What if it's my fault that the ghosts have overrun Amity Park?_ His mind brings out the big guns first. The thought drags him deeper into his funk, so much so that he's barely aware of himself anymore. _I was the one who turned the portal on. Maybe if I hadn't gone in it, my parents never would've tried to get it working again…_

 

_But would that mean I wouldn't have Sam and Tucker as such good friends? What about Li and Kumari? Would those two ever try to interact with me as much if I were less… Out there?_

 

_Where would I be right now if I had never gone into the portal? What if my parents got it working anyway, and I was never given these ghost powers? Would I be killed? Would other people be killed because I wouldn't be there to help him?_

 

_Would I be dead anyway?_

 

Danny has to admit; suicide has never seemed to be a likely road for him to take. But who knew? What if none of his relationships worked out like they do now? Would he have given up or given in?

 

A full-body shiver works its way over the teen's frame. It slowly steeps him in freezing water, burning him out of his toxic mind and into the cool morning air. Surprisingly, barely a half-hour has passed since Danny 'went in'.

 

He sits up from his position with a sigh, noting that Bloo was still there despite their charge having been 'checked out' for most of the time spent in close physical contact.

 

One last pondering thought pops into the dissociating teen's mind. He can't tell if he wants to stifle a laugh or throw himself out the second-story window in reaction to its appearance.

 

"Hey, Bloo?" The half-ghost questions, turning towards his attentive ghostly companion. "Is it weird if I have two names? Like; Danny Fenton and…. Danny Phantom?"

 

It was sort of true. Phantom doesn't feel like his 'real' name, not really, and yet he instinctually responds to it. He thought at first that it was because it sounded so close to Fenton, but now he isn't so sure.

 

Very deliberately, the fully-formed nurse shakes their head in a negative.

 

 _Well, this day is just full of surprises._ Danny has never gotten a truly straight answer out of the ghost; any questions asked were always met with a game of charades with no definitive answer. Maybe Bloo was being extra cautious since they upset their hybrid friend recently?

 

Shrugging, Danny stands from his bed with a yawn, tossing clothes every which way in order to seek out the least smelly pile. He makes a happy noise when he finds a mostly folded and unworn stack. Probably fresh clothes brought in by his mom, then, as he himself never folds his clothes these days. Depression and executive function wins again.

 

He doesn't have to put on a binder as he slept in his black one last night. He knows that he's not supposed to, and he can sort of feel how his ribs are bruised ( _they'll heal,_ a destructive force in his mind whispers. And damn him; he believes it), but as long as he can stretch his limbs above his head and breathe in and cough a few times to shift any fluid gathered in his lungs, he's good. At least, he _thinks_ he's good.

 

Danny digs his phone out from a nondescript pile of previously worn pants. It, surprisingly, has an early morning strand from the Team Phantom group chat. He presumes that he couldn't hear it vibrate from inside of the pant pocket at the bottom of the heap from all the way on his bed (and in his mind.)

 

_Sent at 11:01 a.m_

_SAM: is anybody up yet_

…

…

…

_TUK: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm_

_SAM: ill take that as a yes_

_SAM: Danny?_

…

…

…

_DAN: whattup space cadets_

_TUK: no_

_SAM: don't stifle his creativity, it's the only thing he has going for him_

_DAN: nvm im leavin you guys are jerks_

_DAN: so unworthy of my magnififificent pressence_

_TUK: NO_

_SAM: lol_

…

_SAM: sooo I found this really awesome place and I think we should go there for lunch_

_TUK: omg no_

_SAM: Is that all you have to say today? 'no' to everything?_

_DAN: ehh what kind of place?_

_TUK: The nasty meatless green kind, sweet summer child_

_SAM: the vegan ki_

_SAM: Oi, tuk-nut, shush_

_SAM: It's not that bad I promise!_

_TUK: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhm_

_SAM: you make it sound like it's the end of the world_

_DAN: ill go if tuk goes_

_TUK: lol_

_SAM: That's cruel and you know it._

_TUK: mMMMMMMMM_

_DAN: I dunno just like convince him or something_

_DAN: hes mushier in the morning anyway_

_TUK: I resent that._

_SAM: do you even know what you're asking for here danny-boi_

_DAN: yes. and that is a terrible nickname_

_TUK: Now you understand My Pain_

_DAN: shut it tuk-nut_

_TUK: :/_

…

…

_SAM: We can make it a date!_

_TUK: $^*$ &WHAT_

_SAM: A triple date B^)_

_TUK: asjgheib_

…

_TUK: I'll go._

_SAM: BBBBB^) suck it danny-boi_

_DAN: Um I Don't Recall Agreeing To This_

_TUK: Too late let's go._

_TUK: I'll pay._

_Sent at 11:49 a.m_

 

Danny balks at the screen, closing his mouth to shutter the embarrassed whine that erupts from somewhere warm and wriggling in his throat. He eventually calms his butterfly-heavy stomach enough to roll his eyes and shove his phone into his pant pocket, heading towards the door with a parting wave to the specter languidly lounging on his bed silently witnessing all of these teenage interactions.

 

The half-ghost picks up on the murmuring noises coming from the two humans congregated in the kitchen as soon as he silently toes open his door. He decides to practice his 'physical stealth' by walking slowly and carefully partway down the steps. He never knows when his ghost powers might not be able to save him from being discovered with flight or invisibility, so now's a good time to test this when the only consequences are his parents no longer speaking out loud.

 

"That ecto-signature we've been picking up from Danny's room and in some parts of the house… It's back, and it's strong again."

 

 _What?_ Danny has a few seconds where his sleep-addled brain doesn't seem to comprehend the statement from his mother, but then his heart begins to beat faster in a panic. Were they talking about 'Phantom's' ecto-signature – ergo – _Danny's_ abnormally large and telling ecto-signature?

 

"I don't know what happened… I can never catch it - it always seems to fade whenever I come closer, but it's been appearing every night in Danny's room this past week. That's twice as often as previously recorded."

 

"Well, Danny hasn't said anything. You'd think he'd be the first to notice. What do you hazard it could be, then, Maddy?"

 

"I'm… I'm not sure. All I know is that it had a pattern for a while, but now it's broken it."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Well; it was weak at first, but the longer it stayed in Danny's room, it got stronger. Then it disappeared. But, now, it seems to be in Danny's room almost all of the time, and it never gets any weaker. Just stronger than it was before…"

 

Something clenches inside of Danny's body. He can't tell if they're talking about him or not… Maybe it was Bloo? Or one of the tiny blob ghosts that float around aimlessly? God, he hopes it's Bloo. He would feel safer both as a kid and as a secret ghostly abomination if it was just Bloo's ecto-signature fluctuating…

 

Then again, if it was Bloo, then what did this mean? Why would Bloo be getting a bigger ecto-signature the longer they stay in his room?

 

 _Maybe it has something to do with how physically and visually formed they are,_ Danny justifies. He stands from his half-crouched position on the stairs and makes a bit more of a racket, signaling to his non-hearing-advanced parents that their kid was coming down the stairs.

 

Immediately, he hears two sets of feet attached to familiar smelling bodies adjust themselves, his father clearing a hastily silenced throat. He could practically feel the way the air dissipates from tense to a stifled calm. It was both incredibly disturbing for the normally socially numb teen and fascinating in ways he'd rather not get into right now.

 

After all, noting his parent's physiological patterns was _Jazz's_ weird self-appointed job, not his.

 

"Mornin'," Danny enters with, not even having to fake a yawn. His parents make their greetings back, Dad at the table with a few folders spread about (and an elbow sitting in goo. No one says anything) and Mom standing around at the stove like she was thinking about cooking something.

 

It was strange, somehow, seeing both of his parents in the kitchen on a Sunday morning at once. They were usually either down in the lab or upstairs separately, one person designated to continue whatever ongoing experiment or observation downstairs.

 

"What are you up to eating for breakfast, honey?" Maddie asks lightly, reaching out a gloveless hand to pet her son's hair. Danny allows it despite the slight spasming of his back muscles and the tingling of his inner ears.

 

"Hm… I dunno. What does Jazz want?" The young teen usually defers to his older sister's judgement. Everything she chose tended to taste good enough, if a bit lackluster in variety.

 

"Oh, she's out with some friends today," Jack answers with a confused eyebrow movement, as if he couldn't believe the statement that had just come out of his own mouth.

 

Danny blinks rapidly, waving his stubby-nailed hand around to gain both of his parent's visual attention, "Wait, hold up – _Friends?_ She went out with _f-r-i-e-n-d-s!?_ In the middle of the school year?"

 

Maddie shares an unreadable expression with Jack, apparently making some sort of parental decision within only the meeting of eyes and a few seconds. "Well, sweetie; there's going to be some point in your life when your sister won't be there all of the time anymore. This might just be the beginning of it. She _is_ almost eighteen, you know."

 

"But don't worry!" Jack quickly adds, putting his hand in the air like he's presenting something on a platter, either ignoring or oblivious to the ecto-sample clinging to his elbow, "I'm sure she'll be back soon enough. We didn't give her a curfew, but she's responsible like that!"

 

Danny narrows his eyes at the 'no curfew' part. He knows that she's older than him by about three years plus some odd months, and has a car, but his curfew has been steadily growing more and more strict as time went on. It was like his parents didn't trust him as much as they did her!

 

…Granted, he did regularly disappear at unexplainable times. And not come back for hours. And be unreachable by phone. He'd also sometimes return with injuries, to which he would immediately pull out a small 'water' bottle and begin to drink it religiously, never letting anyone too close to him. By the next day, any visual injuries were gone, and he'd attribute it to getting dirt on himself. Of course he didn't _actually_ have a black eye! He just got pranked by looking into a spyglass with some ink on the rim and then smeared it… all over his body.

 

Yup.

 

"Oh," Danny finally says, "okay. Well, who did she go with?" He's never actually _seen_ any of Jazz's friends come to the house before… He knows that she's on generally good terms with almost everyone at school, but Danny doesn't know if she has a small circle of friends like he does.

 

Maddie furrows her brows, "Two teens with some… _fashionable_ clothes came by. Said they were new to Amity Park and were interested in its local culture and history, and that Jazz had promised to show them around. I think it was a girl and a boy… Or two girls?"

 

Danny has to hold himself back from rolling his eyes at his mother's obviously gendered mind. Something niggles in the back of his head, but he's never really trusted his instincts or logical thoughts very well, so he brushes it off until he can discuss it with someone he _does_ trust the mind of - namely Sam and Tucker.

 

"Well, I guess I'll head out today, too," Danny announces, waving off his mother's continued concerns about having breakfast. He lies and says that Tucker will most likely bring something, evading any questions about where he was going. He has to pinch himself as he realizes that he didn't even need to lie this time – he really _was_ going out to eat with his friends. The small, nearly inconsequential action was just so automatic these days that he couldn't seem to stop himself unless he was deliberately on his toes.

 

He doesn't give it a second thought when, as soon as he's out of sight of his house, he's ducking into an alley to transform. Walking just wasn't going to cut it today, especially not after the 'episode' he had that morning. Besides, it would be easier to find the address that Sam had texted him for the 'vegan bar and grill' they were going to visit.

 

The half-ghost is having a grand old time zooming through the streets of Amity Park, testing out his reflexes by swerving and going intangible at opportune times, when his ghost sense stops his little joyride. Seconds later, he hears a familiar echoing scream that both unsettles his being and causes a strong wave of aggravation.

 

"Oh, great," Danny exasperatedly groans, slumping while in mid-air as his tail turns into legs for easy landing and dodging, "Box Ghost. Again."

 

…but something wasn't entirely right about this. Wasn't he just noting this morning how he hasn't seen the Box Ghost in a week? His sense leads him to a nondescript part of town, above a few abandoned buildings. Not a soul in sight.

 

 _This just isn't his style,_ Danny muses as he floats anxiously in the direction of both the scream and the coldness of his visceral ghost sense. The Box Ghost was best known for getting as much attention as quickly as possible. Being in such an empty part of town meant that it was either hiding… or already in trouble.

 

Sure enough, Danny makes his way around a dirty smoke stack that was surely a hundred years old to see several large vulture-like ghosts swooping down onto a flailing Box Ghost. The blue custodian appears to be purely yelling – no dodging or attacking being attempted.

 

The ghost-boy blinks a few times incredulously. Did he just walk (fly) in on a ghost fight? He thought that he was the only one starting fights in Amity Park, but maybe he just hasn't been around long enough to know the 'ghost dynamics' that carry over from the ghost zone.

 

Danny shrugs, unzipping his backpack to thread the Fenton Thermos through himself like a satchel. He drops his bag next to the smoke stack out of sight, reminding himself to get it later once he was done doing… whatever the hell this was.

 

"Hey!" He calls, flying closer and higher than the four fighting ghosts for a small tactical advantage. His strength (literally) lies in his airborne abilities. "What's going on over here?" He makes sure to use his most threatening voice and to keep his angry-eyebrows in top form. He should know. He practices them in the mirror all the time.

 

All three of the unknown ghosts cease their diving attacks and turn their weird long bird necks around to look at him with hidden eyes. They are all wearing identical pitch black glasses, but can apparently see (or sense) just fine.

 

"Oh, Phantom!" Box Ghost calls, zooming away from the flock of buzzards to hide behind Danny. "My savior has come!"

 

"Eugh…" Danny curls his nose up in slight disgust, "yea, sure, whatever. So? What's going on? Why are you all attacking each other?" He gives the cowering Box Ghost the benefit of the doubt by not pointing out how they were completely useless in battle.

 

"Mind yer' own business!" One of the birds calls, pulling their wing into a mockery of a fist. They apparently don't actually need the wings to fly, as the two others also pull their wings into fists and take a 'fighting stance' without losing altitude.

 

It takes everything in Danny's power not to burst out laughing.

 

"No." Is all he can get out, too busy trying not to sputter. Box Ghost grabs his shoulder, but is quickly thrown off with one flapping hand and a well-placed glower. "Oi! Just because I'm helping you doesn't mean you can touch me!"

 

"Phantom! Methinks you need to be careful with these three…" Box Ghost mutters, getting as close as uncomfortably possible to the ghost teen. Danny can hear their chattering teeth, the unnerved feeling from earlier coming back to haunt (ha!) him. "They have odd powers. Even I, _the incorrigible Box Ghost_ , could not defeat them!"

 

"Uh, yeah, sure," Danny drawls, cracking his knuckles in lieu of punching the blue ghost's lights out.

 

"Wer' warnin' ya' kid!" Another buzzard calls, its dark green aura fluctuating slightly. Strangely, the other two birds fluctuate in tandem as well. Danny blinks a few times and shakes himself to clear his head. "This town is off limits until furthra' notice! So take yer' buddy and scram, before we make ya'!"

 

 _Then why is Skulker here all the damn time?_ Danny quips at the same time he asks, _is that why no one has come by for a while?_

 

 _Just how strong are these ugly vultures if they can keep someone like_ Marina _or those pesky ecto-pusses away?_

 

"Says who?" Danny questions caustically, unconsciously shielding more of the Box Ghost with his body. He blames the instincts that move him to step in front of Sam or Tucker to take a hit. "As far as I know, this is _my town."_

 

Danny truly believes that. It _was_ his town. He'd been born here, he lived here, and he 'died' here. And now he's protecting Amity Park, no matter how unfair it was to him sometimes. It just felt… right.

 

Besides, what else would a half-dead kid do with their time? Get good grades in school? Work on curbing their self-destructive mindset? Pfft; as if.

 

"By order of the Lord Plasmius himself, ya' punk!" The buzzard with the largest amount of neck fluff states, shaking their wing-fist once again. It is slightly more terrifying than an old man shaking his cane at a cloud. "Ya' mess with us, ya' mess with him. And trust us, ya' don't want that ta' happen to ya', kid."

 

"Plasmius…" Danny whispers instinctually, brows furrowing as he commits the name. Something jumpstarts in his head – a memory he'd really rather forget. It was of his first 'ghost attack' down in the lab; that wind-controlling blob monster that tried to drag him into the portal. It spoke in an odd language, but it put emphasis on the word 'Plasmius' once. "What is a _Plasmius?"_

 

"Not 'what', ya' nincompoop! Jeez, what are they teachin' ya' kids in school these days?" Another buzzard yells, flying dangerously close. Danny startles, automatically drawing up a hand full of toxic ectoplasmic energy. The bird doesn't come any closer as the air teems with the adrenaline of a stirring fight.

 

"Yea, well, to hell with them!" Danny calls out with faked confidence. It causes the birds to draw back in gasping horror. "Tell them they can suck my ghostly dick. This is my town, and if they want a fight, then they can _have one!"_

 

Without waiting for more conversation (or thrown insults), the ghost-boy fires two ectoplasmic rays at the birds while tossing the Box Ghost down to the ground. He hears the blue custodian yell as they fall, but hopefully the ghost has enough sense to get the hell out of dodge before things get messy.

 

Three birds take a swooping dive at him, apparently more inclined for wing-to-hand combat than projectile fighting. Danny takes this wave of fleet-footed and seemingly endless winged enemies in stride, countering the line of birds and breaking their rank.

 

"You know, I've never really liked cooking," Danny grunts as he smashes the heel of his left foot onto one of the bird's heads. With his right hand, he blasts another out of the sky and down onto the building, "but I think I'll make an exception just this once!"

 

"You're gonna eat your words, punk!" One of them calls in a shrieking cry, its tail feathers noticeably smoking with acidic heat. The other two pick themselves up and group around the one that screeched, circling its head. Fizzling spikes of lightning erupt into the sky, some coming close to destroying one of the crumbling signs on an old building.

 

The ghost teen halts any further attacks, reeling physically in the air without anything to connect to. He balls up his fists and tries not to let his face dissolve into visible confusion at the way his ethereal-acting hair seems to fuzz with electric energy. What in the world were the birds doing? Powering up?

 

He begins to panic once a strange pink light consumes the middle of the circling buzzards. A choking wave of pressure pops his head back with sudden ferocity, flinging him into a nearby smoke stack. He barely registers the pain of his spine as he gazes up, stupefied, to the transformation occurring.

 

Danny yelps as he fumbles with the thermos at his waist, realizing that this might be his only chance at catching them unawares. He tries not to let the vision of three birds seemingly forming into one _giant three-headed monster_ get to him.

 

"Who has such a long transformation sequence, anyway?" Danny quips as he sucks the molding birds into the thermos. He hears a thrice echoed scream of outrage, one of them even yelling 'I told ya' we shouldn't've done the dance!' before they disappear into the blue swirling light.

 

The half-ghost spends some time scoping out the area for anymore 'surprises.' When he doesn't even find a lingering Box Ghost, he sighs, returning to where his backpack was left. He floats slowly to let his mind calm itself back into order.

 

 _Plasmius…_ Danny muses. _Who is Plasmius? And why do several ghosts know who he is? What's he got to do with Amity Park? Why is he scaring off other ghosts from the town?_ He clicks his teeth, _if this wasn't so weird, I might even be grateful._

 

He lets out another sigh once he gets there. "I'm going to have to go back home and put these things in the portal, aren't I?" He sends a quick text off to the Team Phantom chat group telling his friends that he would be late for their 'triple date', reluctantly flying home to dispose of his cargo.

 

So much for a relaxing Sunday.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

"Nothing anywhere about a 'Plasmius', 'Lord Plasmius', or three buzzards with stupid fez hats that terrorize other ghosts," Tucker stretches in the stiff library chair, pulling his arms up behind his head with clenched eyes. Sam makes a face from a few seats over at the crackling noise his joints make.

 

"We did find something about a three-headed monster bird, though," Sam comments, pulling up a single web page out of many. "Or, well… A monster bird that may or may not be depicted with more than one head. It depends on what legend you look at."

 

Danny rolls his scarcely padded chair away from Tucker's computer and towards Sam's, getting a gloriously terrifying view of a giant bird swooping over a valley between mountains. Another picture further down the page is of a black-and-white painting – the bird there is even larger and has two heads rather than one. It also has a familiar drooping neck, alluding to its buzzard origins.

 

"'Thunder Bird'?" Danny reads off the top of the page. The only other name was something of Persian origins about a misspelled rock. "Well, the transformation that almost happened did feel a little bit… _electric._ But what about that weird pink light? It practically swept me out of the air."

 

"Dunno, dude," Tucker shrugs dismissively, standing up and stretching his legs as well. "Must be a ghost thing. I doubt they have a Wikipedia page made about that… one that we can trust, anyway."

 

Danny sighs out a 'yea,' folding himself up into the library chair. Someone coughs from an entire floor away, but from the tone of their involuntary vocalization, the half-ghost can already tell that it's one of Li's lunchtime friends. A small bout of paranoia makes him think that maybe that person was stalking him, but he shakes it off.

 

"Got something in your pants, dude?" Danny asks Tucker jokingly, a parody of a familiar phrase. The tech genius had been wiggling around in whatever seat he's sat in all day long. It was admittedly distracting if not funny.

 

Tucker narrows his eyes accusingly at Sam. The purple Goth only shrugs, but the two friends can see the self-satisfied smirk blatantly lifting their cheeks.

 

"Whaaat's going on?" The ghost teen questions, flicking his eyes from side to side to address both of his shifty friends.

 

"Tuk started working out at the gym yesterday. Finally." Sam pops some bubble gum in their mouth. Danny can tell from its smell that it's one of those new cheesecake flavors. He makes a note to sneak a stick from her bag later.

 

"Oh," Danny sniffs once, readjusting himself in his seat as an idea develops in his head. "How's that going for ya'?"

 

"It's ten kinds of awful, that's what it is," Tucker groans, changing back to sitting instead of standing. From his disappointed face, it does nothing to relieve the aches of his body. "You should feel lucky, dude. Sometimes I wish _I_ was the one who went in the po – "

 

"A- _hem!"_ Sam coughs suddenly and loudly. The half-ghost clutches at his right ear in defense, unprepared for such a jarring noise so close.

 

"Ow…" Danny groans, rubbing at his ringing orifice despite knowing that it wouldn't necessarily help him. "Do you think that _I_ should start going to the gym? I mean, if everyone else is doing it…"

 

The two friends look at their smallest member. Then they look down at the clearly broken chair still held between said member's fingers. He had gripped too hard without noticing, shattering the spine of the chair into several useless fragments.

 

"No," they state simultaneously. Danny blushes and surreptitiously stands from the broken chair, shoving its remains up under the nearest table.

 

"Let's uh…," Danny coughs awkwardly, "let's get outta here, 'kay?"

 

The three friends retreat from the scene of the crime, each of them repeating their own versions of the mantra _'I am so glad that Casper High does not have surveillance cameras.'_ They has theorized as to why many times, and were about to go to Mr. Lancer for answers when they realized that, coupled with their recently suspicious behavior and unexplained absences, that most likely would not be a very pleasant conversation to conduct and subsequently attempt to get out of.

 

They're walking down the hallway to their lockers, ready to get an early start on fourth period, when Danny pulls back slightly. His friends wouldn't notice – they were having some kind of silent intense conversation with their eyes and body language. He's tempted to teach them both sign language and just get it over with.

 

The devious half-ghost had heard Wesley Weston's voice in another branching hallway. He casually begins walking in the direction of that voice, intent of passing by and giving his 'greatest enemy (and victim)' an unnerving stare or two.

 

 _Bingo._ He has the flighty red-head in his sights. Said flighty red-head jerks, eyes going wide in a split second of unbridled terror as they catch sight of the approaching half-ghost. Something inside of Danny cackles with glee.

 

Before he can make his way past the apprehensive football player, however, he is being bodily shoved into a conveniently located bathroom. The only reason he didn't immediately fling out a hand to palm-strike the adversary on the underside of their nose (a delicate spot) is because he recognizes the feel and smell of a warm human being.

 

"Can it, Fenton," whoever it is that has accosted him hisses, slapping a salty hand over his gradually opening mouth, "and listen to what I have to say."

 

Unseated, Danny raises his eyebrows and physically complies. The person behind him is obviously strong for their stature, which reminds him somewhat of Sam's in its largeness. He feels a few frizzy strands tickle his neck, and tries not to squirm.

 

Despite being manhandled into an empty bathroom in the middle of a school day, none of the alarms in the teen's body are being raised just yet. This person was human, and, even if he was being modest, he could probably have them knocked out flat within only a few seconds.

 

Still, it does twinge a bit when he's suddenly being spun around and slammed against the wall between two sinks. His small back injury from being flung into a smoke stack the other day is the cause of his throbbing distress, but he bets that he would've been in some amount of pain no matter what. This person means serious business.

 

"Who are you?" Danny blurts out tactlessly, causing the tall curvy person with thick arms and even thicker black curly hair to pause in their efforts to speak. They growl audibly, and the hairs on his arm rise up. This person is slightly scarier than he had initially given them credit for…

 

"I'm Valerie Gray, but that doesn't matter." She hisses out, dark eyebrows drawing down to create a fantastically furrowed expression of both anger and frustration. "I know what you're doing, Fenton. And I'm warning you right now – if you don't stop, then there _will_ be hell to pay!"

 

 _Pretend you don't know what's going on!_ His mind harries at the same time it informs: _Dude, you_ literally _have no idea what's going on._

 

Sweat breaks out on his body as the secret half-ghost shrinks down the wall in an attempt to gain distance between himself and Valerie. It doesn't work, as she only leans closer, more threatening than ever. "I uh… I don't know what you're talking about?"

 

"Don't play dumb, shithead" Valeria responds with, tapping her sharp nails on the wall next to Danny's head. He tries not to visibly twitch with every small vibrating movement. "Lay off of Wes, or else."

 

The cornered teen blinks once, breathing in normally. "That's it? What did he tell – " He physically shakes his head to clear it, moving forward and surprising the taller teen into stepping back, _"You're_ the one who should lay off. And tell Weston to stop being such a creep, and then _maybe_ I won't hate him so much! He got what he deserved."

 

Valerie snorts, crossing her arms. Thankfully, she was no longer standing over the smaller freshman like some kind of avenging angel. "Puh-lease. He told me what you did to him. People like _you_ always overreact to everything. 'Got what he deserved'? More like you're just using your emotions as an excuse."

 

"People like me? _People like me!?"_ Danny throws his hands out in a splay, becoming more than just angry. "What the ever-loving _fuck_ does that mean? And don't act like it wasn't justified – I told him to leave me alone!"

 

"You know _exactly_ what it means," Valerie narrows her eyes, tilting her head up to one side. The bare dregs of smugness shine in her eyes. "And he barely even touched you. That hardly warrants such a freak out."

 

Danny's gut boils over with rage. He cannot _believe_ that people like Wes and Valerie exist! Even with all of the good people in this school, it was still full of serpents.

 

" _Fuck_ you and _fuck_ him," he spits out eloquently.

 

Whatever Valerie is about to throw back is interrupted by another person walking into the bathroom. It's a girl from a sophomore year whose name Danny can't remember, only that she wasn't well liked by Li's group. She pauses, flitting eyes between the two warring teens.

 

 _Wait…_ "You dragged me into the _girl's bathroom!?"_ Danny hisses out, face reddening with both embarrassment and outrage. "I could get in trouble!"

 

"Really?" Valerie drawls, cocking her hip to one side and using her superior height to very obviously look down at him, "I was under the impression that you'd feel right at home."

 

The other girl titters from the safety of an open stall, effortlessly damaging the hull of his crumbling mental stability for the day.

 

Something inside of Danny bursts and re-arranges itself. He can barely hold himself back from getting physical. Oh, how he would love to wipe away her confident expression… It is a terrifying notion that he wishes he could get out of his head, but the meaty gore of it doesn't fail to make his gorge rise.

 

" _Gray,"_ Danny seethes before he can stop himself, stepping up and under the opposite girl's nose to glare straight into her eyes, "I suggest that unless _you_ want to end up like Weston, you step off of me, my friends, and anyone else like us."

 

"Was that a threat?" Valerie sibilates, looking as if she was about to move forward and attempt to trap the shorter boy against the wall again.

 

 _Do it,_ Danny's mind hisses in silent challenge. _Do it so that I don't have to think about the consequences of beating the absolute shit out of you–_

 

"Come on, Priscilla," Valerie suddenly calls, parting the sparking air with a single dismissive wave, stepping off and away from a flummoxed Danny. "Let's go."

 

Danny's rage dies, gurgling and unsatisfied, in his body as the two offending girls disappear out the heavy swinging door. He clenches and unclenches his fists, peripherals picking up on how his eyes flicker temporarily from blue to green in the mirror.

 

His phone vibrates a few times in his pocket, snapping him out of his predatory stillness. All aggression is shoved hastily down into the bottom of his mind, festering like an open wound. It makes him wonder if he could sneak home right now for a quick nap with Bloo. His flight speed was certainly fast enough to make it…

 

 _Keep it together, Fenton!_ Danny mentally growls in his head. The voice sounds remarkably like some sort of inner Dash Baxter, and it tickles him so much that he throws a broken and ugly smile towards the mirror. His eyes are baby blue again.

 

Fishing the device out of his pants, he slips out of the girl's bathroom and into the rapidly emptying hallway. Instead of heading towards his fourth period Music where Tucker must be waiting, he sneakily phases his way through a few walls with the help of his ghostly powers. He ends up in an empty room that used to house a Student Counselor, but had apparently been abandoned for a few years due to budget cuts or something equally ridiculous yet concerning whilst on the horizon.

 

Ignoring his two main friends' numerous texts and calls, Danny pulls up the chat group with Dash, Kwan, Paulina, Starr, and Kumari in it, settling down on the floor and ignoring the darkness. Or, more like – settling down on the floor and ignoring how he can see the _giant goddamn spider_ in the corner of the darkness with his supernatural vision.

 

_Sent at 12:14 p.m_

_DAN: annbody know who valerie gray is?_

…

…

…

 

Danny _thunk_ s his head back onto the wall he's lounged against, snorting lightly at the dust the motion kicks up. This room really hadn't been opened or cleaned in a while, and the singular window on the door is covered with a piece of paper most likely declaring the space 'closed until further notice.'

 

The spider in the corner moves slightly. The half-ghost vows to make it a member of the undead if it comes any closer.

 

Finally, after a few long minutes of waiting, his phone vibrates to life.

 

_KUM: I thought she was hot but then she turned out to be a jerk._

_KUM: why?_

…

_KUM: And why aren't you in class?_

 

Confused as to how Kumari would know if he was in class or not, Danny texts back with his usual automatic evasiveness, thus digging a bigger hole for himself than need be. Because he fucking _sucks._

 

_DAN: nbd. she just somehow cornered me in a girls bathroom like 5 min ago_

_KWAN: Are you okay?_

_KWAN: And why aren't you in class?_

_KWAN: Do I need to call up Li?_

_DASH: oooo busted_

_DAN: omg no plz don't call li im not really skipping on purpose i just got out of the bathroom late_

_DAN: ms. moth isnt very forgicing with tardies so I decided to not deal with ot today_

_PAULI: SHE USUALLY LETS ME OFF THE HOOK IF I SAY MY PERIOD ACTED UP_

_STAR: yea well that might be too embarrassing for danny to say! ! !_

_STAR: also not everyone is as brave as you to shout about periods in front of an entire class_

_PAULI: TRUE_

_KUM: okay but are you alright danny!?_

 

Danny sighs in frustration. This chat group had certainly gotten more and more invested into his personal life the bigger it grew.

 

Apparently, his minute-long silence wasn't taken too kindly (or rationally) by the group. Controlled pandemonium erupts.

 

_KWAN: I'm calling Li._

_DAN: Don't You Dare_

_DAN: You Don't Even Know Where I Am!_

_KWAN: Then tell me so that we can help you, Danny!_

_DASH: ooo this is getting good and dramatic yall_

_DAN: Shut Up Or I'll Fuck You Up Dash_

_DASH: whoa_

_PAULI: I THINK YOU SHOULD CALM DOWN_

_Sent at 12:34 p.m_

 

_Do not toss your phone on the floor. Do not toss your phone on the floor. Do! Not! Toss! Your! Phone!_

 

Danny physically resists the urge to shatter something (maybe someone's face) as he shakily puts the phone down, nice and safe, on the floor next to him. It continues to vibrate with messages for a few long minutes before going blessedly silent.

 

He itches at the scars littering his inner arms while he breathes in and out in an attempt to calm himself. Those two actions coupled together don't exactly mix well, however, so he can't really stop himself from picking up his vibrating phone with plenty of crass attitude.

 

"For fucks sakes, I'm fine already; what do you want?" Danny growls out as he presses the phone to his ear. Once again, he doesn't look at the caller I.D before picking up.

 

"You don't sound fine to me, _mon chéri."_

 

Danny sucks in a breath, then lets it out in a bit of embarrassment. "Oh… Li. Was that French?"

 

"It was. Now it's the sound of me _skipping_ French."

 

"Ugh…" The freshman moans in despair, repentant in his ability to somehow fuck everything and anything up spectacularly within a short amount of time. "I'm sorry."

 

"No reason to be sorry, little-man. I did this all on my own. Now, tell me where you are."

 

"Mmm…" Danny groans with indecision. He still wants to avoid seeing anyone right now, after all. He feels unbalanced and jittery like a live-wire, unsure if he could keep himself from 'acting out' right now.

 

"I'll tell you everything I know about Valerie Gray if you do…"

 

"That's not fair!" The half-ghost whines out, his mouth hanging open at the nerve of Li. Still, he can't force down the ticklish smile that it brings to his face.

 

A chuckle through the speaker. "It's not dirty pool if it's done with _loooove!"_

 

That startles a small laugh out of the reluctantly uncurling boy, "Fine. You win. Meet me outside of the old Student Counselor office."

 

Danny hears how Li's hair brushes up against the receiver with brittle static. "Good choice. That's close enough to the senior hallways that no one will question us being there."

 

 _Huh,_ Danny phases through the door, assuming it was locked and that he didn't have the key (nor the energy to go find the key) to open it. _I guess that makes sense. Seniors would be coming to the office most often for college transfer_ _counseling. The fact that it's been closed for years notwithstanding._

 

The slouched teen spends a few minutes chatting about inane things on the phone with his sophomore friend while loitering in the hallway. With the instincts of a pure born troublemaker, he continuously searches the hallways for anyone of importance, keen on literally vanishing from sight if a teacher walks by.

 

Where he was expecting the loud _clunk-clunki_ ng of high heels he only hears the soft padding of bare feet.

 

Sure enough, rounding the corner is a barefoot Li, his prized heels held in one hand while his other secures his messenger bag to his right shoulder.

 

"…You're tracking mud?" Danny notes with a touch of incredulity. There are small globs of mud attached to the other person's feet, and it has smeared brown and grey slime on some parts of the hallway.

 

"Oh, well, you know," Li waves the hand holding the shoes. They noticeably are spotless, "had to sprint across a field or two to throw off the security guard. No big deal."

 

"Security guard?" The shorter teen asks, this time with spades of disbelief. "We have a security guard now?" That might be a problem for his future and continued 'ghost hero' status. What's the chances of being outed by a run-of-the-mill security guard?

 

Except the Korean boy just waves his visible concern off. "Nah, everyone calls them that. They're this weird person who hangs around dressed in riot gear? I dunno, I'm not going to question every single weird thing that happens in this joke of a town."

 

_That sounds incredibly suspicious and possibly supernatural._

 

"Ditto," Danny sighs, following Li as he scampers down the hallway. "So…"

 

"So-o…?" Li echoes, tossing slightly mussed brown hair over one shoulder with a mischievous and yet affectionate look. It suits him to a T. "How's that uh - _specter_ problem going there for ya'?"

 

"Ehh…" Danny draws out, squinting in the direction that he was being led in. It seems to be somewhere deeper within the senior's territory. Why Li thought that they could waltz in here was beyond him, but he assumes that the other boy has a plan. "Not too good. Still… Uh…"

 

"Getting haunted?" Li quips, veering suddenly to the right and kicking open a door with one dirty foot. Danny covers his ears and hastily looks from left to right to make sure that no one had come running at the loud noise.

 

"Sup!" A random person in what appears to be a gutted storage room crows. They seem to be kicked back in their wheelchair watching a Disney movie on one of those extremely old TV's on wheels. Danny immediately has a nostalgic fit for Bill Nye. "Hey there, Li. Come to use the FBI room?"

 

"Yup. Need to 'shoot the breeze' and all," Li waggles his eyebrows, dragging the bewildered Danny behind him as he opens a new door. It leads into an even smaller closet with several chairs set up. It isn't suspicious or intriguing _at all._

 

Danny feels like he's just walked in on some kind of secret society.

 

"Have a seat, little-man," the sophomore offers, plopping himself down in one of the few padded chairs set up in a shaky circle. "So, I heard you had a run in with the Gray Rock of Casper High?"

 

The ghost-teen sputters a nervous laugh and hesitantly lowers himself into a chair across from his friend. He tries to calm his jittery nerves. This was _Li_ here, and although the guy was unpredictable at best and a zany whirlwind full of tasteless ideas at worst, nothing bad would probably happen. Possibly. A slightly lower than half chance of an absence of quackery.

 

"I… Is that what they call her?" Danny questions with an incredulous smile, "Because it totally fits. She practically boxed me in between two sinks and wouldn't let me move."

 

"Yikes," Li winces empathetically, his eyes rolling to one side as if remembering something. "What did you even do to her? Spill something on her expensive clothes? Last time that happened, we had to scrape that kid up off of the floor."

 

"Ehehe…" _If only,_ Danny chuckles awkwardly. The good thing about Li was that they wouldn't necessarily go on a rant if he confesses to doing something 'unsavory.' He feels safe enough telling Li without a repeat of the almost-reprimand that a concerned mom-friend like Tucker did. "I kinda sorta maybe tossed Wesley Weston into a trash can behind the school? And now he's quite obviously afraid of me? And I use that to my advantage to get back at him all the time?"

 

Li balks. And then a smile splits his face, quickly turning into a grin. "Oh, _my god._ Oh my _god!?_ _Ohhhh my god!"_

 

The half-ghost huffs out a breath of amused air, propping his head up on his arms and knees as he lets the other person have their drawn-out laugh. A shot of affection goes through his chest, but he buries the unwanted emotion with a smirk and an eye roll.

 

"Okay… Okay…" Li breathes out the last of his giggles, wiping a finger delicately under his mascara heavy eye line to flick away any moisture. "Lemme… Get this _straight."_ Another snort makes its way out of his body, his lips quivering with the effort to control himself. "You tossed Weston in a dumpster… _Pfft…_ And now Gray is the hound from hell out for your blood?"

 

"…Sounds about right," Danny agrees easily, picking lightly at the sores on his forehead. The slight embarrassment at his nearly instinctual self-harm keeps him from accidentally tearing his skin open in the presence of the Korean boy. "He had it coming, though – honest!"

 

"I understand," Li holds a hand up. Danny gets a nice view of their fancy plastic nails with tiny intricately painted ghosts. He tries not to laugh hysterically at the sight of them. "Say no more. I daresay that you've done us Lister's a favor, Ghost-Boy. If only we were all so incredibly 'immoral' so as to physically defend ourselves from the enemy as you." He nods his head once solemnly as if in mock prayer.

 

Said ghost-boy knits his brow with confusion. "Service? Lister's?" He temporarily ignores the other's flowery language and quiet dig at his lack of self-preservation. He wasn't _that bad,_ was he? Surely everyone had gotten into a rage-fueled fight or two in their short, angsty teenage lives, right?

 

"Ah," the non-binary boy folds one leg over the other, pulling his fluttering skirt down with modest and practiced ease, "therein lies the secret of the meeting. Tell me, _ahgi;_ have you ever heard of the A-Lister's?"

 

Pausing only a moment to pull the pink flesh of his nail out from his serial nibbler mouth, the half-ghost leans forward with a raised eyebrow. "Yea, I've heard of them. It's like… Dash and Paulina and stuff, right?"

 

Li nods, flicking a piece of artistically curled brown hair behind his ear. It has a puckered pink hole with dry skin surrounding it, but no earring was present to fill it. What a mystery. "Mmhm, but that's only the Freshman Lister's. Ever heard of any other Lister's?"

 

"No-o…" Danny drawls, his eyes roaming the room while searching for some sort of memory. The walls are noticeably a paneled brown instead of the annoying pop corned white that decorates most of the school. "Not that I can remember. Are you saying that there's more than just the 'A-Lister's'?"

 

"Bingo, baby," Li points a watery smile in the freshman's direction. "This isn't exactly common knowledge, but there are Lister's for every year. There's the A-Lister's for freshmen, the B-Lister's for sophomores," he halts here, waggling his eyebrows and hooking a thumb at his own chest to allude to his status as a B-Lister, "There's the C-Lister's for the juniors, and finally the D-Lister's for the seniors."

 

"Why does it go like A, B, C, D?" Danny queries before he can help it. He has more important questions, but this one just jumps out at him first.

 

"Oh, it has something to do with how you try less and less with your grades the older and more jaded you get in high school," Li shrugs like it's no big deal. "Also, I'm pretty sure the seniors get a kick out of being called the _D_ -Lister's. Ha."

 

Danny also apparently gets a kick out of it, and snorts with pinched eyes. Seems like his humor isn't any better than the waif-like seniors who ghost the halls and can sometimes be found sleeping under the tables in the library like some sort of wild and skittish animals.

 

"The A-Lister's are chosen by the previous D-Lister's every year," Li continues to explain, easily capturing the one-man audience's attention. "They're the reason why there's networks all around school for LGBTQIA+ kiddos like you and me."

 

"That's amazing…" Danny breathes before making a confused noise in his throat. "But, wait… A while ago, Sam told me not to talk to them at all. Said they wouldn't accept me. Why was that? It made me think they were a dangerous gang or something, but they've never been anything but nice to me." He leaves out the part where Dash constantly seems annoyed with him, despite the odd comradery they had adopted within the chat group. He just assumes that he can't please everyone with his grossly mentally ill and un-showered presence.

 

"Oh, that's because your little friend was an asshole for the longest time there," Li waves a hand, eyes rolling dangerously near to something snarky and cattish. It doesn't suit the sophomore's face with its negative affect. "They might have been genderfluid, but that didn't mean they were to be trusted right off the bat. The A-Lister's just put up their snooty front to make sure she didn't try a bad move or anything. They do that to anyone they don't like." Li moves his gaze onto Danny. "Like Valerie Gray and Wes Weston."

 

Danny sits up straight and attentive. He apparently didn't have to ask what Valerie and Wes had to do with the A-Lister's anymore, as Li was about to explain.

 

"Valerie had the potential to be an ally, just like everyone does," Li hums. "But then she got into the wrong crowd. Weston… Was kind of an asshole to begin with, so there was no helping him there…"

 

A knock sounds on the partially closed door, interrupting their conversation. Danny spins around with wide eyes like a frightened animal, forgetting at some point that there was another person within the near vicinity. Outside is the person in the wheelchair, their lap covered by both a soft blue blanket and a heavy instrument case.

 

"Classes are about to switch," they inform the conversing duo helpfully. "You ought'a skedaddle while you still can. Can't guarantee your safety if you're caught by the gorillas."

 

 _Gorillas?_ Danny blinks rapidly, unable to grasp a coherent response to that. Instead, he swings his gaze over to the standing Li for silent assistance.

 

"Come on, _ahgi,"_ the sophomore beckons, driving the shorter boy into action. "We better 'skedaddle.' Skipping more than one class in a day is a real travesty, you know." He conspiringly winks at the person in the wheelchair as they sidle past.

 

The half-ghost offers the person a small smile in lieu of words. They accept his awkwardness graciously, but a simmering deadliness seems to sit within their dark green eyes. It makes Danny look away with haste, moving his sights onto something safer.

 

…Like how the way Li was heedlessly shucking mud off of his feet into a random corner of the already dirty hallway in order to slide the heels back onto their rightful place as shoes. Awesome.

 

"Real great Samaritan attitude there," Danny quips with a hands-on-hips pose. Li only snorts and slightly overbalances, snatching the shorter freshman's shoulder to use as a resting spot and to keep their body upright. Thankfully, they don't perceive the way that their friend is as solid as a metal pole as suspicious behavior in any way.

 

"Ready?" Li asks, holding out one hand, presumably to be taken in a show of camaraderie.

 

Danny's palms itch at the sight, tingles erupting around his neck and shoulders. He's pretty sure his face is heating up, but he knows by now that the sensation of heat doesn't necessarily equal a visual pooling of blood. He can only hope that he isn't blushing like some kind of hero-worshipping child right now.

 

He's saved by the sound of his phone ringing. He sends a half-fake half-honestly apologetic look at Li as he pulls the offensive item out.

 

On the screen is Sam's number, and he answers right away with an already building wince. She comes on the line to be greeted with an immediate "Hey, Sam, sorry, so sorry – "

 

"You bet your sweet, tiny ass you're sorry. Why the hell aren't you in class?" Sam gripes from the other line. It causes a shudder to go through his body. Li pats him encouragingly on the shoulder.

 

Which is just awesome, because he ends up jumping three feet in the air as the physical connection coincides with the ice shoving its way up and out of his throat.

 

" _Yeesh!"_ He yelps, startling Li and causing Sam to pause in whatever tirade he wasn't listening to. "Uhh… Ermm… Of course I-I'll meet you now! Yup! Off to meet my friend immediately!"

 

Li looks slightly floored with his suddenly skeptical and flimsy attitude, but takes it in gracious stride, no doubt understanding that the situation was of sensitive material.

 

'See You Later' Li signs. Danny simply nods his head in affirmative back, his hands and facial expressions occupied right now. He watches Li disappear down the hallway before taking off in the other direction in a sprint.

 

"How much time do I have before the next break between classes?" Danny breathlessly questions into the receiver.

 

Thankfully, Sam immediately understands his plight, and doesn't have to spend time asking why he was acting in such a way. "Like, ten minutes or something. Somebody blew something up on the tail-end of Msr. Locklear's class so we got out early."

 

 _Explains why she's on the phone right now,_ the half-ghost files the information away quickly. He's got to use his brain for more pertinent things right now – such as finding out where the hell this ghost he sensed is at without the innate tracking ability of his ghost form.

 

 _Please don't be Skulker,_ please _don't be Skulker._

 

"I'm too close to the office to transform safely right now," Danny curses with the realization. He can somewhat hear the way that Sam may be either in a small crowd of running people or power-walking right now, making him think that maybe she was trying to meet up with him. Or even worse – she was trying to locate the ghost herself. "I figure that if I follow any sounds of screaming, though – "

 

"Boo."

 

Danny screams as a deep, echoing voice sounds directly next to him. His phone goes flying out of his grip as something trips him, sending him flying forward towards a wall at a high speed.

 

_Shit!_

 

He can barely make out the way that he seems to go _through_ the wall, erupting into an empty hallway just seconds after almost colliding with something solid. Instead, he rolls down in an attempt to soften his blow with the lockers. It barely works, but at least he isn't passing out right now from a single cranial hit.

 

The stunned ghost-boy has a lovely upside-down view of Skulker phasing through the wall directly in front of his slumped body digging into the dented lockers.

 

"Finally," the cyborg ghost breathes out in a steamy hiss. Their servomotors click and whir with smooth, calculated movements, "I have found you alone. No more interference shall come from those pesky human _pets_ you insist on surrounding yourself with."

 

Instead of taking the painstaking time that he surely doesn't have to dig himself out of the warped metal of the lockers, the half-ghost transforms with only a cursory glance at his peripherals, finding them empty and therefore marginally safe. He pirouettes in the air until he's right-side-up again, floating above the predator below with his arms folded in a faked pose of confidence.

 

"Uh," Danny grunts a bit mock stupidly, "if you've wanted to catch me alone all this time, why try to fight me during school? That's when I'm around the most people, you know."

 

Skulker adjusts a single limb as their eyes shutter closed then open once more. A few seconds of stilted silence, a blank stare, and no movement greets the adrenaline-pumping ghost-boy.

 

"Wait… Are you saying that it's never occurred to you to just…" Danny smacks a palm to his forehead, bringing it back out to point aimlessly into the air with his fingers in a catty gesture, _"wait_ for me to get out of school first? Seriously? How long have we been doing this again?"

 

Another small stretch of non-reaction. If the cyborg could blush, then he bets that the ghost would be bright green right now.

 

"Silence, _whelp,"_ Skulker finally grits out, apparently having replaced their embarrassment with rage. "No more playing games. You're coming with me, and that is _final!"_

 

With a reverberating growl that vibrates Danny to the core, the cyborg ghost whips out a previously hidden ball and chain, tossing it towards the hovering prey at high speeds.

 

Danny attempts to phase through, as he doesn't have enough momentum to dodge in such a cramped environment, and is unwilling to take this mess into a possibly not-empty area.

 

Almost unsurprisingly, given his bad luck, the ball _doesn't_ yield to his intangibility, and instead collides with a painful _snap._

 

He goes down in a curled up heap, hurriedly pushing the metal ball off of him as he attempts to either get up and fly or phase through the floor. It makes a shutter noise like a camera, giving him almost no time to react.

 

Bursts of roving stars erupt into his vision as he momentarily blacks out, something rattling around in his head with a cacophony of brittle and sharp noise. Screeching fills his mind as he loses some indefinite amount of time, coming to with his face plastered to the floor in a sprawl that he doesn't remember taking, several unaccounted for aches and pains littering his body.

 

 _How long was I out? What the hell just happened?_ Danny tries to swallow, only to feel his stomach rise up to meet him. He forces the bile down as he takes stock of his body. He feels like someone inserted a cotton swab in his head and stirred his brain around several times in a blender.

 

A boot lands heavily on his side, crushing him into the floor with a bruising force. He notes that it is on a very obvious and openly bleeding burn mark.

 

_Well - this is going great._

 

The sound of a gun powering up brushes against his hypersensitive ears, causing him to groan out. He can barely turn his head to the right before his eyes are being assaulted by the bright light of a _very large_ and _very deadly_ ecto-gun of unknown ability.

 

"Your first mistake was assuming that all of my weapons have a single function," Skulker chuckles with violent intention, digging their heel into the trapped half-ghost's side until he's practically swimming in a sea of nausea and pain. "Your second was thinking that I was going to play fair or some other _childishly ridiculous_ notion."

 

Panic sets into his ghostly body, causing him to cough out a squeak of fear. "What did..." he gasps once, trying to get a hold of his hyperventilating self, "what d-did you do t-to me…"

 

"No one to help you now, _halfa,"_ Skulker hums out, ignoring the captured child's question with a nasty smile pointed down. "Do you want to know where your precious _awful cloth contraption_ is being held? Then allow me to take you to it…"

 

_My binder? They still have that thing?_

 

Danny can't hold back the whimper of both pain and terror as the gun next to his ear clicks ominously. He screams futilely as he has a split second of realization before heat and pressure erupts into his head once more with a blistering _bang._

 

 _Please pass out,_ he begs himself as his legs spasm once before going frighteningly numb and still. _Please, please, please let me pass out._

 

If only. He is frighteningly aware of how his body won't respond, and yet his face and neck feel… Not there anymore. The facial muscles on the left side of his face twitch without control, but the right is… The right is… Pain. Or gone. Or both.

 

Danny has no properly functioning muscles to stop the myriad of frightened bleating noises that he makes as he's lifted from the ground by one giant metal hand. His gaze meets that of a messy, blurry picture of Skulker, making him become distantly aware of how he only has one eye with vision left.

 

Something unknown and buzzing with energy is fastened to his body, making it impossible to move his arms even if he wanted to. He's carelessly slung over the back of the nightmare that has defeated him, leaving him with an excitingly disgusting view of the ruined floor.

 

Glowing green litters the ground, mixed in with copious amounts of red. He can barely note the hissing noises as the ectoplasm dissolves the blood.

 

A sickeningly wet _plop_ reaches his buzzing ears, making him look directly down. He sees the way that viscous fluids are leaking from his limp body in a steady trail. A worryingly large portion of green slop sits in the middle of the hallway like some kind of mysterious and deadly deep sea creature.

 

 _Death goo,_ Danny thinks hysterically, flopping like a dead fish against the back of the striding Skulker's body. His vision slides around haphazardly, blinking in and out of focus every few seconds of lucidness.

 

Suddenly, between bouts of dissociation and sheer panic in which he admits to silently crying without restraint, Danny hears the sound of screaming. It begins with one person, then spreads to many. He dimly understands that Skulker has moved into a populated area.

 

 _Why don't they just phase through the ceiling and fly out of here?_ But Danny knows why not – most likely because the cyborg wants to instill as much fear into the 'human pets' as possible.

 

A well of shame bursts into his chest as he also realizes that perhaps the hunter ghost wants to tote around their 'prize' as well. His damaged face smacks against the metal plates of his warden's back, causing him to spit out a trail of goo that burns his throat coming up.

 

 _Sam… Tucker…_ Fruitlessly, the half-ghost moves his quickly blackening gaze around the blurry and sporadically fleeing crowds to try and pinpoint his possible saviors. It is no hope – he can't see anything anyway. _I just need Tucker to hack into their suit… Please, show up, please…_

 

They're standing outside of the school now, Skulker no doubt powering up their loud and roaring rockets in order to leave when Danny meets the frightened eyes of a frozen Paulina from within a hastily dispersing crowd.

 

He is distantly aware of his useless right eye sliding out of its socket with a detached _pop,_ hitting the asphalt below in a mess of gooey, fizzing green. His single functioning eye gets a good look at the teens's gaping, wailing face right before he is knocked into numb compliance from the bruising, sudden force of flight.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny comes to in his parents' basement, still conscious in his ghost form, and still disappointingly attached to Skulker's back.

 

"Guh…" The half-ghost snivels, earning himself a hard smack against the metal back plating. "Bluh… Owwch…"

 

"Good, you're back. It would be a shame for you to miss the _crushing defeat_ of being captured and taken to my fortified island," the hunter ghost clicks and whirs. They're standing in front of the open ghost portal, which Danny can only tell from his half-vision by watching the fluctuating green patterns light up the chrome floor. "Sit tight, little _pup._ I have important business to conduct."

 

He's then suddenly being unceremoniously flung to the floor where he collapses into an undignified heap of numb limbs and a strangely detached mind. Skulker clunks away to stand near the lever of the portal, leaving the half-ghost crumpled in the corner.

 

A strange throbbing sensation encompasses Danny's entire body, dragging him slowly out of his dissociative cocoon. His partially depleted vision roams the familiarity of the lab, furthering disentangling himself from his sticky, cloying, poisonous calm.

 

Bits and pieces of desperation filters in as he drags fitful lungful's of air into his broken body, delirium adding to the concoction at the realization that he has fully functioning lungs despite being in his ghostly half. He confusedly struggles against the contraption fastened around his elbows and chest.

 

"Damage?" Skulker exclaims suddenly from the other side of the room, prompting Danny to force himself into some form of attentiveness. "Well, sir, you never said… Surely, as he is but simple prey…"

 

 _Phone,_ the half-ghost notes distantly, swiping a dry tongue shakily over his split lip. It comes back coated with sour green. _Who?_

 

The hunter ghost growls, throwing their arm down and apparently ending whatever conversation they had been having with the unknown person (other ghost?) as they stalk towards the pliant teenager they had left on the floor.

 

" _Nno…"_ Danny moans out with abrupt urgency, crawling haltingly away from the approaching adversary until he hits the wall up under a bolted down metal table. "Sstay away… Go _away… stop…"_

 

"I don't see why you're acting to pitifully," Skulker harrumphs, grabbing a hold of his ankle and yanking him harshly out from under his flimsy shelter without preamble.

 

A yelp that quickly morphs into a whine of pain is dragged from his throat as he scrambles slightly in a shoddy attempt at escape. "No… Please…"

 

His 'pitiful' and unwittingly voiced begging gets him nowhere; Skulker lifts him up with a single unkind hand and begins to carry him face-first towards the open portal.

 

Danny renews his efforts to escape with ten-fold of the desperation. "No… No! Stop, _please, stop, please, don't do this – "_

 

"Would you be _quiet!?"_ Skulker growls, shaking him roughly with their grip encircling their entire stomach area. It sends wave after wave of nausea through him, but it certainly doesn't shut him up.

 

"M- _mom!"_ Danny calls out, eyes wide with an all-encompassing distress that wipes away any qualms he might have had about blatantly pleading and crying in front of someone he regards as the enemy. " _Dad! Help, please, help!"_

 

For a moment there, he swears that he's back in the basement with the blob-ghost that tried to choke him to death. He can even imagine the wind picking up, the way the glass slid through the skin of his knees and elbows, the hopelessness he felt…

 

Something inside of him seizes with severity. Bright green ecto-energy snaps the restraints that held his arms to his sides, startling him into action. He reacts by lashing out with his fists, hitting the hunter ghost's joints several times in a frenzied attempt to get them to stop walking.

 

Miraculously, it works.

 

"Why you - !" Skulker growls once more, sounding fantastically frustrated with their situation right now. "Why must you always do this?"

 

"Wha – " Danny gasps out incredulously, somehow finding the tail end of his indignant sarcastic defense system. It boots up like an old, sleazy friend coming to visit and bum off your couch. "You're _hurting me!_ You're literally _tearing me apart_ every time we meet, and _now_ you have the gall to ask me _what's wrong!? Really!?"_

 

Skulker gets an offended look on their face, opening their zipper-like mouth as if readying themselves to retort. Danny doesn't let them, sucking in the biggest lungful of air that he can manage in this state.

 

" _Help!"_ He bellows suddenly, some part of him that isn't outright panicking reveling in the way it gets the cyborg carrying him to flinch. _"Heeelp!_ Please, somebody call a tow truck or some - !"

 

Skulker either ran out of patience or did not appreciate the ghost-boy's little joke, as he suddenly finds himself being thrown into the wall. He collides with the hard surface and slides down, hitting the floor in a groaning heap of _pain_ and _regret._

 

 _Note to self: don't antagonize the enemy when you're basically a limp noodle stuck to a wall,_ Danny wheezes despite knowing that he probably wouldn't follow his own advice. He's stupid like that.

 

"Don't you understand? No one is coming to help you!" Skulker declares, stomping over in order to retrieve their crawling cargo once more. "Now be quiet while I – "

 

A chill sets about the room, causing both warring ghosts to look around cautiously. Within a few seconds of the arrival of the unsettling atmosphere, Skulker charges up a barrel-like arm gun and stands over Danny, who is still laid out on the floor like a failed art sculpture.

 

Danny looks up to the visage of the tall and bulky hunter ghost standing still as a machine-like dead thing can be, an unknown emotion flitting about his chest. His eye roams about the room, hearing the faint crackling noise that signals frost encompassing the farthest corners of the walls.

 

Not knowing what else to do and shivering slightly in the unsettling cold of the room, he lightly touches the side of Skulker's leg in lieu of speaking. When this yields no reaction, he noisily flicks their boot, causing a hollow ringing noise to erupt.

 

Skulker gets an annoyed look on their face. Danny sticks his tongue out.

 

 _If this thing insists on capturing me for whatever fucked up reason,_ the teenager decides as he continues to try and shake the other ghost's leg like a coconut tree, _then they're going to have to deal with me being an absolute brat._

 

The cyborg above him says nothing and doesn't look down, but their foot is lifted off of the ground in slow movements. Danny is worried for a moment that he made a mistake, and that the predator was going to try and squash him underfoot again, only to be shuffled closer to their body with the appendage.

 

Something in the room shifts again, and Skulker lets out a loud whirring noise, retracting their hand gun. With hurried movements, they bend over and harshly shove Danny up under the bolted-down table once again.

 

" _Silence,"_ the hunter ghost hisses out quietly as Danny begins to open his mouth, "and stay that way." They move a few boxes up in front of the bunched up ghost-boy so that he is mostly hidden in his spot under the table.

 

Absolutely gob smacked at the unexplainable turn of events, Danny stares questioningly at the speedily retreating cyborg ghost.

 

Skulker looks back once after standing in front of the portal, powering up their rockets as they gaze unnervingly into Danny's eye with an unreadable mien.

 

"Don't think that this means that I'm not going to continue to pursue you, _child,"_ Skulker snorts out a bout of steaming air that is pronounced in the chilly atmosphere of the room. "Make no mistake – I _will_ be back." They let their eyes roam skeptically around the room. "Try not to become _too_ discouraged in the down time."

 

And with that, they disappear into the portal with a swirl of diffusing pressure and light, leaving behind a bewildered and half-conscious ghost-boy shoved up under a table blocked by a couple of flimsy boxes with debatable labels.

 

_What? W-h-a-t!?_

 

Danny shivers violently as unexpected sobs wracks his frame, his mind apparently finding this to be the time to come back online. The freezing temperatures leave him with a constant feeling of ice sliding up and down his throat, choking him beyond what air he can provide his body with.

 

With a flash of damning light, he transforms back into his human body, crying out at the hot waves of pain that it brings. His vision clears slightly as the right side of his face makes itself known to exist once more, but it doesn't do anything to stave off the bright, fuzzy grey and green dots blotting out his vision.

 

Panicked breathes punch in and out rapidly through his body as he curls up onto his left side in an attempt to get any pressure off of his injured right side. His binder seemingly crushes his bruised ribs in an uncomfortable vice grip, making him deeply regret ever wearing it for longer than twenty-four hours at a time.

 

Unfortunately, his view is blocked by the small tower of boxes set up, so he can't see what it was that made Skulker run off so quickly. Something that was powerful enough to freeze the room to hell and back wasn't a something that Danny was exactly equipped to deal with right now.

 

Some part of him whimpers with fear once more, garbled words and pleas of _I can't do this, I can't do this, please, somebody help me_ filter in through his mind, knocking all other rational thoughts out of the ballpark with the well-aimed swing of dread.

 

In his mind's eye, he can see Sam and Tucker standing there with their hands out waiting to help him up and loving concern on their faces. He would lay on Tucker's bed with them and roll around until he, inevitably, ends up smooshed in the middle, falling asleep even though it got too hot sometimes.

 

 _Everything will be fine,_ he desperately tells himself. _You'll wake up and drink some disgusting ecto-water and you'll heal. You'll always heal eventually. Everything will be okay…_

 

Danny's eyes slide closed with his breaths turning too cold to bear as he finally – fucking _finally_ – loses consciousness on the floor of the lab. All of his thought processes fade into the black abyss that consumes him as his body goes gooey with forced relaxation.

 

Drifting away, he perceives cold, numbing hands carding through his hair.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩(unfinished ch22, "punk half ghosts", added 1/31/2018)۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny wakes up from his ice-induced death-nap in his bed with the garish taste of sour ectoplasm in his dry mouth. Bloo is sitting somewhere next to his head, and there are several containers of half-empty ecto-sample all over the side table.

 

 _Knocked out cold,_ Danny’s traitorous mind quips instead of doing something _useful_ as he vaguely recalls the events of… Today? Yesterday? Last week? Hell if his fucked up sense of time and space helps him now. Especially since every glance at the clock only yields a new version of a hallucinatory trigonometry equation.

 

“Sssine…” Danny hisses out as he feels the way his stomach is rolling ominously. He bets that he’s only got the next half minute to get himself to the bathroom before whatever it is that wants to come up his esophagus is going to make itself known in smelly, chunky, acidic ways.

 

The half-ghost rolls himself haphazardly until he’s smacking face-first into the floor, holding back the scream of both pain and shock. Bloo makes a noise of alarm somewhere above him, but he’s too busy cursing himself for being such a slob while army crawling across the cluttered carpet.

 

“God…” He huffs out a breath as the smell of moldy food and sweaty clothes permeates his nose, _“dammit…”_ He physically shoves a mixture of trash and important papers out of the way before he makes it to the doorway. The sense of urgency in his body is good for flushing out any lingering panic, but unsurprisingly shitty for anything else.

 

As long as he makes it to the toilet in time to toss his ectoplasmic cookies, he’ll be fine.

 

…For like a hot minute.

 

 _Waterworks sounds like a terrible idea right now,_ the downed half-ghost decides as he spits a bit of carpet fuzz out of his mouth, straining to claw his way across the floor. Danny was known to be a particularly violent and messy crier these days. _It can really take all the energy out of a guy, having emotions and all that useless jazz._

 

Bloo continues to make odd noises behind him, but he pays that no mind. He may have given himself about ten seconds more than he should have on his thirty-second-before-she-blows countdown. This affliction is making itself known by the cold sweat and shaky limbs hindering his snail pace to the bathroom.

 

There’s a crashing sound followed by what might be a small battle fought by many Pomeranians in ectoplasmically charged super suits, but _oh boy_ does Danny _not_ have the capacity to be concerned about that right now. He’s just barely making it to the bathroom, hands digging desperately into the sides of the toilet to try and drag himself up before his rebelling stomach finally does what it was threatening to do.

 

 _Oh, god,_ Danny’s mind wails as it feels like glass shards are forcing their way through his very sinuses _, it’s worse than I ever remember it being. And that’s counting the time I drank half of a lava lamp at Tucker’s birthday sleepover._

 

Something cold presses against his bare folded legs as he heaves until only stringy, frothy bile comes up. It feels nothing like Bloo’s calming hands – just cold and pressure. It makes him momentarily blind with panic and revulsion, but that passes in the wake of numb weakness and sharp pains accompanying fever-like shivers.

 

He doesn’t have the strength to lift himself up further and flush the toilet, so he lets his mind eat itself like acid as he gazes down into the unsavory concoction in the white bowl. It looks like a mix of slabs of rubbery chicken liver, an entire blood muscle, and no small amount of yellow peppery bile.

 

 _Fantastic,_ his mind quips as he spits another mucus-coated glob of ectoplasm and blood into the toilet, noting how the inside of his mouth feels like he swished around a drink made of rubbing alcohol and the piss of the damned.

 

His astute observations of the breakdown of his mortal body are interrupted by the incessant pressing of cold, silky fog on his thighs. He lolls his head to the side as he collapses slightly onto the tub, blinking blearily in a failed attempt to ground himself.

 

“What.” Danny deadpans at the bulbous green ghost that stares at him with no eyes and an open, sharp-toothed mouth. “What do you want.” His eye throbs momentarily, but he can still see, so he isn’t letting himself be concerned over how his _eye slid out of its socket and splattered green gore all over Paulina Sanchez the last time he was fully awake._ Nope. Not thinking about it.

 

 _Weird dog thing._ It makes a whispered panting noise, its body undulating with only the vaguest impression of a shape as it swirls around and around and around – _I’m fucking dizzy now. Great. As if I wasn’t already._

 

“Thanks… So much…” Danny groans as he shakily rubs his forehead with one hand, the other naturally coming up to lightly shove at the tiny green ghost. It rolls in the air almost happily, bouncing back in time to be pushed outward again.

 

The absolutely trashed ghost-boy allows this rhythmic dance to continue as his mind fades into a deep haze with the likeness of a trance, at some point convincing himself that he was pushing something in a swing. Because there’s nothing better than dissociating so hard that reality becomes unreality, right?

 

His small reprieve (full of pain and blood and throbbing to where he can’t even tell where his injuries originate from anymore) is torn apart by the shrill sound of the downstairs phone ringing. He makes vague motions with his arms to clutch at his ears, groaning and startling the blobby ghost-thing into escaping out the open bathroom door.

 

…Great. Now he was both alone and irritated. And, y’know, possibly bleeding out, but that’s nothing new.

 

In fact, the phone seems to just keep getting louder and louder and – closer?

 

Around the door corner comes the green ghost again, looking more solid than it had a minute ago. In its spikey little jaw is the house phone, still ringing an appropriately grating amount. The ghost looks like it physically vibrates with every ring.

 

Slightly stunned, yet more than willing to roll with the proverbial punches of his life as of right now, Danny takes the offered phone off of the green blob and allows the specter to dance and wriggle around near his ribs like an excited cat.

 

It takes a few seconds for Danny to realize that he can’t read right now, with him desperately blinking at the phone to try and see the caller I.D. Instead, he takes a not-so-wild guess as to who it could be, pressing the green button.

 

“Sam?” Danny chokes out. His voice sounds like he deep throated a chainsaw. “Is everyone okay?”

 

“Daniel.” That is not Sam.

 

“Oh…” Danny is sort of probably not mentally prepared for this conversation. “Hi… Vlad. What’s uh… what’s up?” Smooth like battery acid.

 

“Is everything alright?”

 

“Mmmm…” Danny makes a vague noise that may or may not have something to do with how his jaw is slightly numb on one side. “Maaaybe? I’m not… too sure…”

 

There’s a sort of drawn out noise that might be a sigh. “I am going to go out on a limb and presume that your parents are not currently at home?”

 

“Nnnnope.” The little ghost phases in and out of his stomach a few times in small loop-de-loops. It kind of tickles.

 

“And are you injure – “

 

The little ghost makes a warbling noise that jars something in Danny’s head. For some reason, he has the distinct impression that he just heard some form of words.

 

…but that can’t be right, can it? It didn’t sound anything like Esperanto or English or… whatever. It just sort of felt like words –

 

“Daniel,” Vlad interrupts Danny’s thought process with. He sounds sort of… stricken, strained, and maybe scary if Danny hadn’t literally just been torn apart in a fight against some kind of eldritch horror from another dimension. “Are there any ghosts in the near vicinity? Are you aware of your surroundings?”

 

Danny, instead of immediately answering, picks something out of his teeth with his tongue and spits it to the side into the destroyed water of the toilet. He can practically feel the tension from the other side, which is really weird considering he’s on the phone.

 

“Eh,” he finally mumbles out a bit flippantly as he twiddles a few bruised fingers under the slightly solid ‘chin’ of the little ghost. “Yea, kinda. I mean… This isn’t the ghost that attacked me or anything. It’s actually kinda… uh…” Dare he say ‘nice?’ Or maybe ‘harmless?’ “Kinda harmless.”

 

“Daniel, your breathing is very heavy.”

 

Huh, Danny looks down at the little ghost. Never noticed. More like he has so many injuries and pains that he can’t pinpoint what’s coming from where anymore.

 

Still… “Oh, yea, I uh… Forgot to take my binder off last night.” He doesn’t actually have a fully formed reason as to why he just told the other man that.

 

“Oh, my…” Vlad sounds like an aghast southern belle; Danny almost laughs out loud. “Are you able to get it off now? You really shouldn’t wear a binder for more than eight hours, son. Do you need to call someone else?”

 

 _Whoa,_ Danny throws up his proverbial hands to ward off the sudden tirade. _Didn’t expect that._ “Nah, nah I’m… I’ll… _Wuh…”_ He takes a semi-deep breath, wincing when his ribs twinge. “I can do it. It’ll be fine.”

 

He goes to lift his arms, then realizes that he can’t take anything off without dropping the phone first. So, jokingly, he says “If I don’t call back within the next ten minutes, send the parental brigade,” before abruptly hanging up on the no doubt worried adult.

 

Awesome. He’s going to have to sort through that shit later.

 

For now, however, he’s wrestling his long-sleeve shirt off with an audience of one, the little green blob ghost still hanging around various parts of the bathroom, drooling a light mist of ectoplasm that dissipates in the air. It’s actually kind of endearing and comforting, like your dog sleeping at the foot of your bed at night and making your legs numb by morning.

 

Except… like… freaky horror movie style.

 

He’s just slipping his head through the binder and tossing the crumpled thing into the corner of the room when the phone rings. Once again, he spends a few seconds squinting at the caller ID before remembering that his precise vision is next to nothing right now.

 

Still, he can’t shake the idea that it says ‘DANNY CELL’ as he picks up.

 

“’Sup,” is all he answers with.

 

“Danny? Oh, thank god; Sam, I’ve got him, he’s at home.”

 

“Tuk?” Danny gets out a bit incredulously. “Oh. Good. You found my phone.”

 

Danny can practically hear Tucker gaping on the other side of the line. _“That’s_ what you care about right now?”

 

There’s the faint-ish noise of Sam demanding that Tuk ‘hand the fuckdamn phone over’ before there’s a sharp clattering sound that nearly has Danny tossing the phone in the toilet to get away from it.

 

“Daniel Jubilee Fenton – “

 

Danny sputters on a painful laugh. “That’s not my middle na – “

 

“Do I sound like I give a flying fuck what your legal or chosen middle name may or may not be?” Damn, she’s pissed. And worried. So twice as bad as usual. “I just had to comfort a hysteric, crying, _squalling_ Sanchez for the past thirty minutes. _Thirty. Minutes.”_ Sam makes a huffing, strained sound. “She put her hands on me! I think it was some sort of elaborate choke hold – “

 

“It was a hug, Sam,” Tucker interrupts drolly from somewhere close to the phone.

 

“ _Of course it looked like a hug to you,_ you _casual,”_ Sam hisses in a way that makes Danny believe that she’s pointing her face away from the phone. “And do you know what was drenched all down her expensive, fresh off the mall line blouse, Danny?” She continues seconds later into the receiver. “Blood. _Greeeen_ blood. And we all only know of _one_ ghostly chucklehead who has that sort of lowered acidic ecto-blood that doesn’t immediately eat through everybody’s clothes and skin.”

 

Danny sucks in a guilty breath through his teeth as he blankly watches the little ghost settle down on his slack foot. It’s tail keeps squeezing tangibly in between his toes. “Id’ve thought that the whole ‘screaming and abruptly hanging up the phone’ would’ve clued you in that something was _maybe wrong_ first.”

 

“I dunno, Danny, you _do_ do that quite a lot,” Tuk pipes in from the background. They are apparently on speaker phone. Danny didn’t know that his cellphone even had that function.

 

“Don’t fault me for being dramatic at 3 AM,” Danny defends with. “We’ve all been there before.”

 

“O- _kay!”_ Sam interrupts with. “Not having this conversation right now. Out with it, Danny. What. Happened.”

 

Danny sighs like he's just been given a large burden that he doesn't care to carry. His dramatics are sort of ruined when he can barely drag the breath in and out again without spasming in pain, though.

 

“Alright, alright,” Danny concedes, throwing one arm into the air in annoyance. It phases right through the ghost and gives his limb an unnatural chill. “I... Skulker... I got ambushed, I guess.” He runs a hand through his hair that pulls coldly against every strand, trying to ignore the heavy silence on the other end. “They did... something, with a new weapon. Made fun of me, taunts, 'silly ghost child', yadda yadda; y'know, the usual.

 

“Except... this time...” Danny swallows. The anxiety that he was furtively dissociating away comes back, unfurling in his chest with burnt wings that brush harsh coals against every surface. “They... They tried to take me... into the _Ghost Zone..._ I think...”

 

There's a noise on the other end of the line, something that sounds like several voices calling out Sam and Tucker's last names. Danny blinks away his thought process in order to listen closely.

 

“Uh, no sir, we aren't on the phone, sir!” A nervous Tucker stutters out, with Sam nowhere to be heard. She probably skipped town, as she is prone to doing.

 

“Well, let’s just see here. Who is this?” A voice barks into the phone. It sounds like one of the older years’ teachers.

 

Danny’s mind draws a blank.

 

“Your call has been forwarded,” Danny says in the most robotic voice that he can muster, blank-facedly ending the call with one finger.

 

…That went well.

 

 

＼＼\\\٩۶//／／

* * *

 

 

 

Danny’s dragging himself down the stairs and to the kitchen – totally ignoring the mess and commotion in his room, because _let’s be real_ here about his energy levels and attention span – when he remembers that he basically told Vlad to rally his parents with a cellular war cry if he didn’t call back soon enough.

 

Swearing up a storm, the half-ghost fumbles with the downstairs phone charger for five entire seconds (this isn’t the most embarrassing thing he’s ever done) before he remembers that the actual phone itself is upstairs. In the bathroom. Where he left it.

 

Uuuuugh.

 

"Well,” Danny says to himself, staring at the stairs that he wouldn’t crawl back up for five dollars and a half-eaten doughnut. He distinctly remembers participating in a bet with Tuk that had the exact same outcome. “It’s as they say: fuck.”

 

Seriously.

 

(He schmoozes the phone back from a wandering ecto-pup, who coughs it up from _somewhere._ Surprisingly, it still works.)

 

Two rings.

 

Danny wonders how he’s going to explain his way out of _this_ one.

 

Three rings.

 

He’s also wondering about the mess of ecto-samples upstairs, littering his bedside table and floor with even more debris than usual.

 

Four rings.

 

His first guess as to who – or what – could’ve brought them up there for him, and seemingly fed them to his unconscious body, would be Bloo.

 

Five rings.

 

_…Is Vlad not going to answer?_

 

Six rings.

 

_That’s really strange…_

 

Seven rings.

 

… _but not_ that _strange._

 

Danny hangs up the phone before it can ring itself into obscurity and ask him to record a message. He has no idea if Vlad lives with other people or has guests over or what – he’s taking the slightly-smarter-than-usual route and thinking ahead before he decides to leave a message that sounds like “I’m half-dead but everything’s fine!”

 

He'd laugh about the truth of the statement and then possibly get his parents arrested for child neglect.

 

Haha.

 

…He’s pretending it’s funnier than it really is.

 

“Story of my life…” Danny mutters to himself as he roots around in the kitchen cabinets closest to the lab door for some old, sturdy rags and a bottle of purifying solution. His parents have been perfecting the solution ever since they realized that ectoplasm was a hard stain to fight (sometimes literally) and needed more than just a local cleanser found in a store to get rid of it.

 

Just as he’s setting everything onto the table and debating the merits of floating up the stairs instead of making himself walk again, keys rattle from the front porch.

 

And then Danny’s staring at the door with wide, lemur-like eyes and completely forgets that he can literally disappear if he wants to.

 

Did Vlad call his parents after all? That’s rich – the guy didn’t even pick up the phone!

 

Jazz’s voice filters through the room as the door is pushed ever so slightly open – except it sounds like she’s talking to someone (more than one someone?) and so Danny freezes all over again.

 

Jazz? Friends? Jazz with friends?

 

_Pinch me, I must be dreaming!_

 

A soft sliver of cold pushes its way up through his chest, into his throat, then out of his nose and mouth.

 

“Fuck me,” Danny deadpans. Now he _really_ wishes he were dreaming.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just make Valerie into an asshole? Yes, I did. She was sort of intense in the show, too, and I wanted to replicate that. I love her to death (ha!) but I want to build her up first. Not everyone starts out as perfect as can be, all prim and educated. She's going to have to grow first, which is going to be tons of fun because hey! Arch-enemy anyone? (fuck you vlad)
> 
> I hate how the A-Lister's were, like, the stereotypical 'vapid popular people who are all terrible' so I made them into a secret gay society. Hot damn.

**Author's Note:**

> **I've decided to discontinue trying to complete/rewrite this because I wrote it when I was sort of young and in a really bad dysphoric state and continuing to write it would put me back into that bad state which I'm not really willing to do. Sorry everybody.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Nothing will be deleted, though, so you can read all 130k+ and whatever side stories I add to the series whenever you want, since I'm not discontinuing 'do ghosts tan?', just the main story itself.**
> 
>  
> 
> **IF enough people seriously want like, an outline of how the rest of the story was supposed to go, I can post it as ch22, but if most of you are like 'yea I'm fine with how this 'ended' and I don't need an ending', then this is it, folks.**


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